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Karl Stagno-Navarra
The experiences they recount are truly dramatic, almost surreal, and often go unobserved by society in general.
They are children, from newborns to just under sixteen, the “extra baggage” aboard the skimpy fibre-resin boats that set out from the Libyan coasts to the unknown Mediterranean sea, mostly steered by inexperienced migrants, in a quest to reach our European shores, in search for the “land of opportunity”.
As if it was not enough to be a real risk for the adults that cram the boats, it is becoming an even more dramatic reality to see an increasing number of women and children risk the voyage, mostly in an attempt to unite themselves with other family members who made it to shore on a previous trip of fortune.
The risk of taking aboard the “extra baggage” is leaving its toll, as last weekend’s horrifying tragedy 40 miles off Malta, has led public opinion to start to understand the plight and the gruesome reality of illegal immigration: 17 dispersed at sea, seven of whom were children, and whose dead bodies were seen floating by Sicilian fishermen who rescued the survivors.
The children are innocent and vulnerable, the real victims of this inhumane phenomenon. Born into this world under the most dramatic circumstances – wars, poverty, orphaned, ethnic outcasts – they know no better than that reality.
It was a shattered dream. Mothers lost their children, who couldn’t swim; a newborn baby, just 40 days old who had to be let go for his mother to be able to float; a 14-year-old boy lost four of his toddler brothers.
The survivors, just 13 out of 28 future seeking immigrants, were brought to Malta and handed over to the competent authorities. The story they related was tantamount to witnessing the truth about the illegal immigration phenomenon, and the Mediterranean as the basin of death, a grave for an estimated 600 to 800 immigrants in 2005, according to a rough estimate by the ministry of home affairs.
Besides the burden to accommodate the ever increasing numbers of immigrants reaching our shores, the state is also faced with the moral responsibility of assisting the traumatised children, as well as their mothers.
Whilst administrative procedures leave the authorities with no option but to keep children and their mothers under a detention regime for some weeks, agencies such as Appogg are working round the clock in response to this ever growing reality.
“Securing the early release of children from closed detention centres is of top priority for the agency, as also stated in the national policy on immigration”, says Appogg media officer Rosalie Vella Piscopo.
She explains that the agency liaises with other competent authorities, including making contacts with the health department for fast tracking medical clearance. Once this is obtained, these children, both those who are unaccompanied minors and also those with their families, move to alternative accommodation.
These social work interventions result in mothers and families moving into alternative accommodation together with their children within the community for a better quality of life. The same interventions are offered to all those identified as being in a vulnerable situation, including pregnant women, the elderly and persons with a disability.
“Without any doubt, trauma is the most evident psychological condition of those in detention, especially children. The experiences some of them narrate include hardships such as having to flee from one place to another. Witnessing violence, abuse and even death, sometimes even of a family member during their journey to Europe. They would be facing many uncertainties, not knowing what their immediate future holds,” she explains.
Concerns at the length of detention of children and minors in detention centres pending administrative clearance and procedures is of major concern to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
Speaking to MaltaToday, UNHCR representative Neil Falzon insisted that what he witnessed a week ago at the AFM’s Lyster Barracks, with children running around within the confined spaces of the detention centre under military discipline and command, “is totally unacceptable”.
Neil Falzon added that it is already enough that the national policy is to keep all immigrants in detention, “and UNHCR is even more adamant against children held in detention”.
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