20 immigrants escape from Ta' Kandja

Twenty illegal immigrants escaped from the detention centre at the police Special Assignment Group headquarters in Ta' Kandja early yesterday morning.

By the afternoon, the police had caught 10 of the escapees, the police said.

Ta' Kandja houses about 30 illegal immigrants.

In a statement yesterday the police said that apart from the 20 illegal immigrants, the escapees from Ta' Kandja also included another three persons who were being kept there after their permit to stay in Malta had expired.

The police added that apart from the 10 recaptured escapees, they also apprehended one of the three persons who were staying in Malta without a permit.

During their investigations, an additional three persons, who were also found to be staying in Malta without a permit, were arrested.

The escape follows hot on the heels of the break-out of 54 illegal immigrants just over a week ago from the detention centre at police headquarters in Floriana. So far, the police have apprehended 25 of the earlier escapees.

In a statement, Labour MP Gavin Gulia said the last escape was proof that the government had lost control of the problem of illegal immigration. The government, he said, was breaking one record after another of escapes from places of high security.

This was happening at a time when the minister was making declarations of cooperation in the fight against illegal immigration while posing for photographs with his Italian counterpart who happened to be in Malta.

He said it was ironic that the immigrants who escaped in the morning were making room for 40 new immigrants who entered the country a few hours earlier, increasing the burden on the forces of law and order, that were stretched to the limit.

The government, Dr Gulia said, could not continue playing hide and seek. It should give the people a clear explanation of why there was confusion in law and order. It could not continue using the police as a smokescreen, washing its hands from responsibility.

The worst thing the minister could do was to continue showing indifference to the problem by insisting that it was normal for immigrants to escape.

If this was the government's attitude towards the problem, political responsibilities should start to be shouldered, Dr Gulia said.