Home Affairs Ministry: Libyan rescue ‘direct result’ of Italian repatriation deal

As the United Nations’ High Commission for Refugees raises its eyebrows on claims by the AFM that 27 migrants rescued on the high seas decided to return to Libya, the home affairs ministry is standing by this version of events.

Spokesperson Darrell Pace yesterday said neither the government nor the Armed Forces had “changed policy” when asked by MaltaToday why the migrants were not taken to the nearest safe port of call.

According to eyewitness reports from two Somali nationals rescued by the AFM, the asylum seekerswere led to believe there was not enough space for everyone on the Maltese boat and the others were told to jump onto the other. “They spoke Italian, and we believed they were going to Italy,” one said, expressing shock at the news that the rest of their friends were taken back to Libya.

MaltaToday is reliably informed that the Libyan flagged vessel that took aboard the 27 men and women back to Tripoli was in fact a former Italian Guardia di Finanza patrol craft, recently donated by the Italian government to the Libyan government.

Pace has insisted that Libya has become “more actively involved” in search and rescue missions as “a direct result” of the controversial 2008 Italo-Libyan agreement and the working relations Malta has built with both countries. According to the agreement, Italy intercepts African boat migrants and without screening them, forcibly returns them to Libya, where many are detained in inhuman and degrading conditions and abused, Human Rights Watch claims.

Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici has also stated, following a summit with Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, that Frontex – the EU’s border control guards – should take on responsibility to repatriate intercepted migrants “who are not deserving of status”, referring to refugee protection. No reference was made as to how their status would be determined by Frontex army personnel on the high seas.

Pace has insisted that the both countries’ armies had safeguarded the life and wellbeing of the migrants persons in distress “by bringing them to a safe port in an effective manner without incurring loss of life.”

The rescue operation of 17 July saw the two rescue vessels coming to the aid of the migrants whose boat was sinking. The AFM claims 27 migrants from a boat carrying 55, voluntarily embarked onboard the Libyan vessel. The rest were brought to Malta.

“To UNHCR it seems highly unlikely that people who have taken great risks to leave would choose to board a ship if they were aware that it would be returning them to Libya,” the United Nations body told MaltaToday yesterday.