About 200 irregular immigrants broke out of the detention centre at Safi yesterday with a goal in sight – Malta International Airport.
The detainees did not make it into the airport perimeter because the police and army intervened. No one was injured and there were no reports of violence, Police Commissioner John Rizzo told The Malta Independent.
The breakout happened at around 1.25pm, when a number of detainees pulled up part of the chicken wire fence that surrounds their compound within the barracks and advanced en masse to the gates of the Safi compound.
AFM personnel formed a human barrier in front of the airport crash gates that face the Safi barracks entrance. Meanwhile, Commissioner Rizzo said, the police were called in as backup and arrived on the scene within 20 minutes with a detachment of 50 police officers, including some members of the Special Assignment Group. Commissioner Rizzo took a leading role in cordoning off the immigrants, rounding up the ringleaders and speaking to them in an attempt to persuade them to return to their compound.
Meanwhile, access to the road was blocked off by traffic police as the immigrants were harassing drivers who were passing through. Commissioner Rizzo explained: “We found who the ring leaders were and we spoke to them. It took us about 30 minutes to get them back inside, but we managed to do so without the incident turning violent on either side. No one was injured.”
“We were firm with them, but fair,” he said.
Mr Rizzo and some soldiers said that the immigrants had damaged the fences within the compound and had also caused some damage to their living quarters. He said that their complaints were the same as usual – that they wanted their freedom and access to the media and the UNHCR.
Meanwhile, Mr Rizzo gave some details about the change from having a closed detention centre at Police General Headquarters to having an open centre.
“We only housed some 30 immigrants there when it was a closed centre, and we had space for 120,” he said.
Mr Rizzo explained that the idea of having a closed centre within the headquarters was neither good for the Corps, nor for the immigrants themselves.
“It is a much better environment now that it is an open centre. Obviously, they do not have access to the HQ proper,” he said.