Malta struggles with migrants
* Actually, they’re not ‘migrants’- they’re invaders. And the EU-parliament, already infiltrated by 20% Muhammedans (A puzzling phenomenon, because overall numbers of Muhammedans in Eurabia at this stage are just around 10%) is totally in line with the ludicrously corrupt UN- officials who support the invasion and the destruction of civilization with the new-age multiculti-diversity religion.
Malta is in the front line, and the Maltese are suffering badly.
Franco Frattini (right) one of the usual suspects, is urging EU members to bolster Frontex
By Alix Kroeger
BBC News, Valletta
Maltese anger grows
Malta is hamstrung by an EU regulation which says asylum seekers must make their claim in the first EU country they enter. By an accident of geography, Malta receives a disproportionate number.
“We are moving towards a crisis if the present trend continues,” Mr Borg warns. “It has created some right-wing opinions which before were hidden in the two mainstream parties. Now they have separated from the mainstream and formed their own party.”
That party is Azzjoni Nazzjonali, which launched last month and is now picking up between 4.7 and 6% support in opinion polls. It will contest next year’s election on, among other things, an anti-immigration agenda.
Somali migrant Abdul Far-Ali still wants to reach Italy with the mental baggage of the slave of Allah…
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Its founder, Josie Muscat, calls the arrival of so many migrants “an invasion”.
“Where does Malta’s responsibility end?” he asks. “When we get 100,000? When we get 200,000? When will Europe or anybody in the world lift a finger and say, ‘I’m going to help Malta, because Malta can take no more’?”
The backlash is not just political. There were arson attacks last year against church groups and journalists who publicly supported the migrants.
Seven cars belonging to the Jesuit Refugee Service were set on fire. The head of the JRS, Father Paul Pace, admits the attacks have had a chilling effect.
“(At first) you feel supported; there is a lot of solidarity. Then you realise you are dealing with persons who probably have less limits than you would have expected in a democratic society,” he says.
There have been no attacks for several months now, but no one has been arrested or charged. The editor of Malta Today, Saviour Balzan, was asleep in bed when his home, opposite a police station, was attacked last year. His newspaper had just published an article supportive of the migrants.
They put tires and petrol on the door but his dogs woke him up. “The fact that they had the gall to attack my house in front of a police station shows their intentions are clear,” he says.
So Malta is struggling to cope.
In a field off the road to the airport, a tent city has been put up to accommodate the overspill of migrants coming out of the closed centres. The Hal-Far open centre can hold up to 840 residents: at the moment, there are around 750.
Each tent holds 24 bunks, divided by sheets and cardboard. In the summer, the temperature reaches 40C. The migrants have scavenged bits of old furniture. The camp manager is putting in purpose-built blocks for cooking and washing.
There are migrants from as far away as West Africa at Hal-Far, but most come from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan. Most move on as soon as they can. Their aim is to make enough money to get to Italy.
Extra border patrols at sea may turn some of them away, but as long as conflict, poverty and, possibly, climate change impel them to move, the migrant flows will continue. The pressure on Malta will only increase.
Patrol vessel P-61 cuts through the waves off the Maltese coast, while overhead a helicopter from the German federal police flies past.
But this is not a real border patrol of Malta’s territorial waters: instead, it is a show of political support for the tiny island state.
The number of African migrants arriving in Malta has more than tripled: from 502 in 2003, to 1,780 last year.
Most of them are there by mistake. They wanted to get to Italy but were blown off course or were rescued at sea. They do not want to be in Malta and Malta does not particularly want them.
On board P-61 are EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini, the director of the EU external border agency Frontex, Ilkka Laitinen, and Maltese Justice Minister Tonio Borg.
The patrol goes no further than Valletta harbour. It would take too long, around five hours, to get out to the real patrol zone, and anyway the seas are too rough: it is unlikely any migrants will be risking the crossing today.
Pressure of numbers
Malta has been appealing for help: more ships, helicopters and equipment to increase border patrols. It also wants “burden-sharing”: that is, EU countries less exposed by geography taking in a share of the migrants.
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