News • November 30 2003

The forgotten ones

‘Imprisoned’ asylum seekers detained for over two years

Matthew Vella
The ordeals of asylum seekers who land on the Maltese islands are slowly turning into a humanitarian crisis with almost half of the 514 asylum seekers in Malta having been detained for anything between one and two years.
As the dire conditions of the immigration camps become alive with tales of black market transactions by army soldiers and crowded conditions, revealed last week by MaltaToday, more is added to the humanitarian plight of the asylum seekers. Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg has confirmed that 232 immigrants have been detained at the camps for over a year, whilst five asylum seekers have already been detained for over two years.

The Home Affairs Minister said in Parliament that a number of these detainees have had their applications for refugee status refused and are now awaiting repatriation, a process which involves procuring passports from their countries of origin. Others are awaiting the finalisation of procedures filed at the Constitutional Court.
According to the latest figures released by the Police media unit, 514 asylum seekers are currently being kept in custody, 185 of which are being kept at the Police GHQ and the SAG’s Ta’Kandja centre and 252 at the army’s Lyster and Safi barracks. There are currently 49 women and 28 children all being held with their families at the Safi Barracks. Nine of these children were born in Malta.
With pressure mounting from the press and NGOs, Minister Borg has now gone on record with plans which purport to improve the understaffed Refugee Commission (RC), currently chaired by Curia PRO Charles Buttigieg which processes applications for refugee status as sanctioned by the UNHCR.
At present, the RC is made up of Buttigieg and five other assistants, whilst the Appeals Board, chaired by history professor Henry Frendo, is assisted by two other persons. NGOs have already noted that the lack of human resources at the RC is not enough to cater for the long list of applications filed since the recent series of influxes over the last two years.
Future plans for the Home Affairs Ministry however include the hastening of the application process by increasing the current staff of nine people on the RC and the Appeals Board. Borg has also said he could be introducing a cut-off period for asylum seekers detained for unreasonable periods of time.
matthew@maltamag.com