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Karl Schembri
With eleven immigrants drowned just outside Maltese waters Friday and more boat people sighted on the high seas, the tragic fate of asylum seekers along the deadly Mediterranean migration route is now an established pattern as anti-immigration elements in Malta stoke the discourse of invasion.
Early yesterday morning, the Armed Forces rescued another 29 immigrants believed to be from Somalia, including six women, one of them a mother with four children aged three, eight, 11 and 13, now all housed at the Hal Far detention centre.
In the afternoon, the AFM had intercepted two other boats on its radars heading towards Italy, though no contact was made with them as no signs of distress were forthcoming.
Friday’s tragedy brought in 16 rescued migrants who had gripped to their capsized boat around 40 miles east of Malta, while 11 of their colleagues drowned in the early hours of the day. Four of them were in serious condition and were rushed to hospital, while the rest were visibly exhausted.
In all cases, the fibreglass boats, sometimes even smaller rubber dinghies, are being overloaded with desperate people in search of a better future, leaving the shores of Libya in the hands of inexperienced captains.
The rescue missions over this weekend have involved closely the Italian and Maltese rescuers in joint operations, although the brunt of rescuing immigrants in distress rests largely on Malta given its new obligations to intervene in virtually every case falling within its vast search and rescue area.
Since the acrimonious diplomatic war over responsibility for last November’s fatal trip for 29 migrants left dead on Sicilian shores, after both countries failed to approach the boat carrying 200 migrants in force 6 winds, Valletta and Rome are now adopting a conciliatory tone as the death toll increases. Friday saw the Italian coast guard and Malta’s AFM working jointly to locate and rescue the immigrants in distress.
Last week, another 15 immigrants disappeared on the high seas, engulfed by the rough waves.
Meanwhile also yesterday night, another two boats with 49 immigrants on board arrived at the island of Lampedusa.
Meanwhile the Journalists’ Committee condemned the ANR’s demonstration, describing it as “nothing short of an incitement to violence”.
“The ANR’s threatening words and inflammatory speeches contributed to emotionally charging the crowd, bringing out the real intolerant and anti-democratic nature of ANR – an organisation which disguises itself as a champion of the national interest while spreading hatred towards people of different cultures and nations and those who give them a voice,” the Journalists’ Committee said.
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