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Cabinet will be holding a crisis meeting tomorrow to discuss emergency measures to be taken in the face of the massive influx of immigrants who disembarked in Xlendi, Gozo, early yesterday morning.
The arrival of 206 immigrants, most of them Eritreans, is the worst to hit Malta since the 1991 arrival of Albanian immigrants in St Paul’s Bay. Other immigrants in the group claim to be from Ethiopia, Sudan, Morocco, Palestine, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Somalia, with 11 of them being children and 16 women.
The immigrants were housed temporarily last night at an Armed Forces of Malta warehouse in Hal Safi.
Joe Azzopardi, a spokesman for Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg said the situation was very worrying for the country as currently there is already more than twice the number of immigrants arriving last year.
“It’s a real crisis that is straining all the country,” Azzopardi said.
Tomorrow’s meeting will involve the army, civil protection and police chiefs. Government sources say the main problem facing the authorities is to identify immediately new spaces where new immigrants may be housed.
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