50 asylum seekers released from AFM barracks

Around 50 asylum seekers who had been detained at the AFM barracks in Hal Far were released yesterday, according to police sources.

The immigrants were transferred to the two open centres in Hal Far where they can now enjoy their freedom as they wait to be given an alternative accommodation elsewhere.

The last time that a group of immigrants was freed from detention was on Christmas Eve last year. The group comprised immigrants who entered Malta in March and July 2002, and those whose cases had been before the courts for a long time. The government had said the move to transfer immigrants from detention centres to open centres was a gesture of good will.

The founder-director of the John XXIII Peace Laboratory, Hal Far, Fr Dionysius Mintoff, OFM, was jubilant at the news that a number of immigrants were transferred to open centres.

"I hope that adequate accommodation will be found for them all," he said, adding that Peace Lab volunteers were happy that people they had been supporting had been finally freed.

Another two families from Cameroon, who were being detained at Safi barracks, were also freed and transferred to the open centre at Lyster Barracks yesterday evening.

Detainees at Safi Barracks ended a ten-day hunger strike yesterday morning after Assistant Police Commissioner Andrew Seychell told them that a number of immigrants from Hal Far had been freed from detention.

One immigrant said they decided to end the hunger strike because they had been promised that the authorities were freeing detainees first in first out.

The asylum seekers started a hunger strike ten days ago to protest against their lengthy detention. They insisted that the authorities should have them tried in court and, if found guilty, imprison them, rather than detain them indefinitely.

"The hunger strike was the only tool we have to cry out to the public," the immigrants said.

The migrants detained at Safi have been there since 2002. They claim they are 14 to a room and that 80 of them have to share three toilets and four showers.

An immigrant also said a number of detainees were becoming desperate living in detention. "Some people are sick and a number of us are going crazy in here," he said.

They said that this time round, they were promised they would be freed from detention in turns, according to who had been detained longest and this is what prompted them to stop the strike.

The Home Affairs Minister could not be contacted for a comment.

On Good Friday 39 illegal immigrants were brought to Malta by an AFM patrol boat after their six-metre dinghy, which was short of fuel and was taking in water was spotted 68 miles south of the island by an aircraft from the US Sixth Fleet.

The immigrants, who included three women and two children, claimed they were from Eritrea. There was also an Egyptian man among them.

On Thursday, 28 illegal immigrants, including three women, landed in Malta after an American ship rescued them 25 miles off the Maltese coast.

The immigrants claimed to be Somalis.