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Karl Schembri
Groups of asylum seekers kept in the different detention centres around the islands are feared to be planning a protest march outside of their compounds that would lead to Valletta on 10 March, high-level AFM sources told MaltaToday.
The alert was raised following information gathered from detained immigrants alleging that ringleaders were coordinating a bigger protest than last week’s, which saw around 100 of them taking to the streets after escaping from their badly fenced compounds in Lyster Barracks. Riots broke up simultaneously at the Hal Safi centre.
Sources say the possibility is being taken seriously by the AFM and the Detention Services Unit although a spokesman for the prime minister denied that such reports had reached Castille.
Last week, the immigrants agreed to return to their barracks after marching to the Gudja roundabout after protracted negotiations with AFM Commander Brig. Carmel Vassallo and Police Commissioner John Rizzo.
But security forces are concerned about the ease of their escape from the undermanned compounds with cheap fences.
“As Commander AFM, my duty is to keep these immigrants in detention,” Brig. Vassallo told MaltaToday in an interview last Sunday. “Now for how long, as a country, will we tolerate a situation in which they can escape any time they want to? Yesterday they stopped in Hal Luqa. Today, tomorrow, whenever, a group can decide to keep marching on till Valletta. What will we do then when they reach City Gate? Castille? The Palace?”
Pre-empting the possibility, the AFM Commander added: “The situation now is that you have a small number of soldiers which you can count on one hand, maybe two, with 1,000 immigrants. So I really believe there was an element of luck, because things could have escalated, and that’s where you have to decide what you are going to tolerate.”
Even Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg admitted in Parliament that the “it was easy for the immigrants to get out of the detention centres: they just pushed at the netting and forced it open”.
The precarious situation has reached heightened proportions as the army is unable to mend and reinforce its own fences at detention centres, leaving the possibility of further escapes and protests in the streets wide open.
On Monday, The Times reported Parliamentary Secretary Tony Abela admitting that government’s attempts to beef up staff at detention centres with retired police and army officers had only yielded 16 individuals so far taking up the offer.
“So far the take-up has been nowhere near what we had in mind,” Abela said. “We would have taken 100 had there been a good response.”
And the head of detention services, Lt Col Brian Gatt, confirmed the unstable fencing at the immigration compounds’ perimeters.
“We had fixed the fence since the Depasquale report but if a crowd charges at the fences they will come down,” Lt Col Gatt said.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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