Some days ago, the mayor of Hamrun posted an outburst on Facebook about what the immigrants are doing to the Hamrun community.
Unfortunately, he chose as his starting point the picture of the black drunk immigrant lying on the road in front of the Marsa church allegedly shouting Allahu Akbar. It was reported the migrant had entered the church during the funeral and interfered with the ceremony.
Later on, this story was turned upside down by people who were on the spot. They said the migrant helped in the funeral, rather than interfered, and that his Allahu Akbar was a prayer rather than a sign of defiance.
Outside of this, the Hamrun mayor’s outburst was more than justified. People who live in Hamrun can testify to all the lawlessness, vandalism, neglect etc that has taken over the locality. Of course, it did not help that a sergeant at the Hamrun police station was found to have secreted drugs and found items in his own locker. The case is now being investigated.
Some days later, the mayor of Marsa entered the fray. In his case, he was more than justified by events that took place. In particular a certain bar keeps getting mentioned as the place where illegalities have taken place. Police raids have taken place and people arrested with drugs. Drunk illegal immigrants have been arrested while driving cars in a dangerous manner. There is now a call for a protest to take place in the coming days. Dr Ahmed Bugri from the Foundation for Shelter and Support to Migrants told this paper yesterday that police raids in Marsa do not solve anything.
What is the real situation at Marsa?
There was an extremely good report on last Sunday’s It-Torca by that paper’s editor Victor Vella. He interviewed the Jobsplus (the former ETC) CEO, Clyde Caruana (the one who recently said Malta needs more imported workers – but that’s another issue) who said most of the people one sees hanging around the Marsa roundabout have come from Italy.
This is a new class of under-proletariat we have not focused upon at all. These are not boat people, as many think, but people who came over to Malta from Italy where they arrived as boat people. The Italians give them a piece of paper which is valid for three months but usually it does not state when the paper starts being valid and when it lapses.
With that paper they come to Malta and Schengen rules say, it seems, they must be allowed in.
There are hundreds if not thousands of these ‘Italians’. The Marsa mayor claimed that in some cases, they are sleeping ten to a room in rented premises. Others sleep outside. They are killing animals in a basement, without care for hygiene. Shops have been opened without licence. And there is widespread drunkenness.
It is obvious that many of these migrants are not brought up used to drink and taught to control it. Hence come other abuses, from drink driving to fighting and so on.
It is, in our opinion, useless for Dr Bugri to say that police raids solve nothing. The forces of law and order must do what they are there to do without being accused of ‘racial profiling’ if they stop people and ask to see their documents.
But, apart from keeping law and order wherever this is threatened, the government must find a way to tackle this wave of immigration from Italy, Schengen or no Schengen. Unless something is done, this will get worse. There are places in Italy which have been overcome by migrants who have turned entire cities and areas into no-go areas. Do we want that to happen here?