As everyone in Malta continues to sit on tenterhooks, waiting for the next development in Panamagate, a human crisis continues to unfold in the Aegean Sea and Central Europe.

Ignoring warnings that their hopes for quick access to a better life in Europe were in vain, migrants gathered on Turkish beaches and piled into boats yesterday for the risky crossing to Greece, just as they have done every day for the best part of a year. Five, including an infant, drowned in the attempt.

In September last year, the world showed an outpouring of grief as the scale of death in the Mediterranean hit home with the tragic image of a Kurdish toddler, Aylan Kurdi, lying dead on a beach. Like thousands before him, he drowned in a cold, dark and unforgiving sea.

Europe's leaders gathered, they promised that these scenes would never be witnessed again. But they have been witnessed, time and time again.

More than a million migrants have come to Europe in the past year, most of them to Greece by boats from Turkey, where millions fleeing war, persecution or abysmal poverty have gathered. Once  transferred to the Greek mainland from their island arrival points, most headed to the border with Macedonia, and then onward to Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, the entry point to Austria and other prosperous EU nations.

EU leaders met again earlier this week and have dangled a huge carrot to Turkey, offering fast track EU membership, €3 billion in emergency funding as well as facilitating current visa issues.

It smacks of hypocrisy, throughout its attempts to join the EU, Turkey has been repeatedly rebuffed on its human rights track record, yet now, even as the government cracks down on the press, that is all ok and if Turkey can stem the flow, they will get the hallowed EU status that it so craves.

But back to the people. France is dismantling the 'jungle' in Calais, in the hope that those trying to reach the UK will finally give up and move on. But to where? That is the perennial problem. EU  and non-EU states are closing their borders, effectively trapping the migrants where they are.

Passage through the Balkan countries began being restricted last month. On Monday, countries along the Balkan route decided to allow through only people with valid EU visas.

Nearly 42,000 people are now stranded in Greece, including some 14,000 people camped out near the crossing, many in tents. Torrential rain has added to the desperate conditions at the site, with tents sinking in mud and soaked firewood making it impossible to start camp fires.

EU and Turkish leaders agreed at a summit on Monday to the broad outlines of a deal that would see migrants arriving in Greece having fled war or poverty would be sent back to Turkey unless they apply for asylum. For every migrant sent back, the EU would take in one Syrian refugee, thus trying to discourage people from setting out on dangerous sea journeys.

But will it work? Probably not. A lasting solution needs to be found. But it is so far elusive. Malta, of course, is comfortably numb in this situation. The problem for us is out of sight, and out of mind. However, what we fail to realise is that while the Libya route is more or less closed, this is because of the presence of Islamic State terrorists, just 350 miles or so across the water. We may be lulling ourselves into a false sense of security. The threat that it poses is much more dangerous than that of migration.