Malta is safe as a humanitarian base - Foreign Affairs Minister

Fears that missiles were fired at Malta were dismissed by Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg, saying that these assumptions were unfounded because there was no reason for Malta to be fired at and the sound could have resulted from any number of things.

“The government has not done anything to jeopardise the safety of Maltese citizens in Libya or Malta by taking a humanitarian stance,” said Borg.

Speaking on Radju Malta, Borg today said that when involved in foreign affairs, focus is mostly directed towards the situations in neighbouring countries and the impact on Malta.

“Anything that happens to our neighbours, heavily affects the situation in Malta. Just to put everything into perspective, three North African countries have embassies in Malta. These countries are Tunisia, Egypt and Libya which is where all the conflict has been occurring. So, this is obviously going to affect Malta,” said Borg. 

Borg said that although there is a new Libyan government gaining recognition worldwide, there are still people dying. During Tunisia’s conflict 400 people died, 800 died in Egypt but the death toll in Libya has drastically increased to between 30,000 and 50,000 and counting according to figures given by the minister.

The minister said he had worked closely with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi to make decisions for the country’s participation and safety. As an example of the humanitarian assistance, the government wanted to delay the return of the Mirages airplanes because it was known that these planes would be used to bombard civilians even though it was heavily criticised by numerous Maltese citizens.

“We have had to take calculated risks in this situation as well as allowing the British to use Malta as a base in military operations to evacuate foreigners from Libya. We had to ensure that this would not result in violence but these operations were solely used for humanitarian reason. We also allowed it on the condition that Maltese citizens were evacuated where possible in these operations,” said Borg.

Malta was in a difficult situation due to close ties with surrounding countries especially with the Libyan market trade with many Maltese traders surviving solely on business with Libya.

“The government had to decide on Malta’s position in all this and we took a humanitarian stance. The first action was to bring all Maltese back to Malta if they wanted to return. The second was to help other nationalities to return since we had assistance requests from around 100 countries,” said Borg.