The unfolding rescue from Libya of foreign nationals is now nearing its end, although some people from poor countries don’t have governments who can hire a catamaran or a ship and bring them to Malta and fly them back to their countries.

That leaves the Libyans in Libya and people from various countries, mostly poor, caught up in the situation there.

So far, it would seem that at the two land frontiers – east to Egypt and west to Tunisia – it is mostly Egyptians and Tunisians that are being allowed to cross. And not all Tunisians have managed to cross nor all Egyptians.

Put yourselves in the shoes of the people caught in there, with no visible means of getting out and wanting just to keep out of trouble and danger and to protect themselves and their families – and you have a vague idea of what can lie next.

Whatever the outcome of the present rebellion – whether it is a victory for the people or a crushing victory for Gaddafi – the explosion will take place as soon as things have eased up and people can move around and even escape from the country.

So far this does not seem to have happened not even in the east of the country around Benghazi which is liberated and relatively free. It is true that the fighting there has wrecked the airport and no scheduled flights have resumed, and that the harbour, used by the British Navy ships, is not being used by other ships.

As for Tripoli Airport, it is now closed and deserted – although some flights are still landing there, and Libyan Arab Airlines still manages to operate some flights, it would seem – and only leased catamarans seem to be operating out of the harbours.

Once the fighting eases, that’s when one should expect the huddled masses to try and find a new country. By boat, as countless people have been doing so far, by plane, on ships – there will be a mass exodus of mostly poor, ordinary, Libyan citizens out of the country.

That is where Malta’s geographic position will prove crucial. It will no longer be an exodus of foreigners brought here under strict supervision by their governments and kept on board the ship until buses take them to the airport. It could well be, as Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said in our sister Sunday issue, a mass exodus of poor and needy, fleeing from a civil war on our doorstep.

In many ways, this incoming wave will be radically different from the successive waves of asylum seekers over the past years. And even this wave may regain added virulence too. On the one hand, there are anything up to two million people from sub-Saharan countries roaming around in Libya since the frontier with the south is porous and not guarded.

To which one must now add also anyone who is remotely darker skinned, since many Libyans are now considering any such persons to have been mercenaries involved in the mass killing of protesters.

So instead of one stream of people coming this way, we may well have three. Three huge streams of poor people who risk everything, even crossing a sea that can become alternately stormy and dangerous, to get out of the hell that Libya may become and to seek refuge on our shores and hopefully in Europe.

To which we may also add a fourth stream – that of people who were fighters but who will have found themselves on the losing side. People who may have murders on their consciences or even genocide, people who mix with the three afore-mentioned streams so as to hide their identities. And also possibly terrorists who will mingle with the crowd on their way to other countries there to lie as sleepers until they get the order to blow themselves up etc.

It is clear that Malta cannot cope with this four-fold invasion. Compared to this, the well-organised welcome over the past days for which Malta has been justly congratulated, is a children’s party.

It is equally clear that other countries in the EU, especially the northern states are reluctant to help Malta, and Italy, carry the burden. Maybe Italy’s Frattini was too over-emotional and dramatic, so ministers could pooh-pooh his alarmistic statements by pointing out that there have been only a few refugees from Tunisia so far. Maybe it will only be when we are inundated that Europe can bring itself to try and do something. We are becoming quite agnostic of the EU’s well-sounding words and promises when it comes to deliver them.

Still, when the wave reaches our shores, we must struggle to remember that these people coming our way are unfortunate people, people who found themselves caught up in the fighting, people who deserve a new life instead of being pushed back to a life of poverty, danger and death.