Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo this morning said that Malta received nearly 5,000 migrants in the last 12 months, and there is no place for more.

Writing on Facebook, Bartolo said that between January and mid-April this year, Malta received 1,135 migrants, the number of which grows to 4,491 for the period between March 2019 and March 2020.

In proportion, it’s as if Italy, France and Germany received more than 100,000 migrants, Bartolo said.

The government has been under fire from NGOs after migrants were returned to Libya in the last 24 hours after they found themselves in Maltese waters.

Bartolo said that in the past week Malta received 66 migrants, and asked for assistance from other European member states. “But only Portugal has responded, promising to take six,” the minister added, while Luxembourg and Ireland said they cannot accept migrants as they will be receiving children from a migrants centre in Greece.

European countries, in all, have promised to take 389 other migrants, but we are still waiting, Bartolo said.

Centres in Malta where migrants are kept are full to the brim and we cannot take in any more, he added.

Some people are suggesting that migrants are kept in hotels which are empty because of the Coronavirus crisis, but what will happen when this pandemic is over, Bartolo said.

The minister said the European Commission, the Vatican and the United Nations all understand Malta’s situation, and all say that Malta should not be left on its own.

“And yet we are on our own and in an impossible situation,” Bartolo said.