Escaping migrants from Malta seek 'greener' EU countries

Last year, 261 illegal immigrants who had come to Malta and registered for asylum were found living in other European member states, the Sunday Times reports.

8 August 2010, 12:00am
by Miriam Dalli

1 min read

According to Eurodac sources the majority of asylum seekers escaping from Malta choose to go to greener countries in the North of Europe. The 2009 data shows that 102 asylum seekers were found in the Netherlands.

Apart from the Netherlands, the asylum seekers were found in Norway, Germany, Italy, France, Czech Republic, Finland and Sweden.

A Eurodac official has been reported to say that, “the trend of ‘Maltese immigrants’ escaping to Northern Europe is similar to the situation in Greece and Italy. Illegal immigrants perceive the north of Europe as offering more opportunities and thus try to settle there, even illegally.”

The asylum seekers were caught through their fingerprints which are registered as soon as they file an asylum application.

The Sunday Times reports that these immigrants will be repatriated to Malta to continue with application process.

Miriam Dalli joined MaltaToday.com.mt in 2010 becoming assistant editor f...