In the wake of the return of hundreds of would-be asylum seekers from Italy to Libya, the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Malta has called upon the Maltese government to continue to respect its obligations towards asylum seekers and refugees.

The recent step taken by the Italian government, it said, could result in a serious breach of the Geneva Refugee Convention, to which Malta is also a party.

Fr Pierre Grech Marguerat, director of JRS Malta, said: "Both national and international law provides that all immigrants who ask for protection within the jurisdiction of the Maltese government, irrespective of nationality or ethnic origin, should be allowed to apply for refugee status.

"All applications should be examined by a competent authority. To remove asylum seekers from the territory before they are allowed to do so could lead to a violation of the principle of non-refoulement, which states that asylum seekers should not be returned to a country where they will face persecution."

The JRS said the recent return to Libya of these asylum seekers raises a number of concerns regarding the quality of protection they will receive. This is because Libya has not yet ratified the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and has no national procedures in place for the determination of applications for refugee status.

A case in point, the JRS said, is that of 110 Eritreans forcibly returned from Libya to their country on July 21. "Amnesty International has received well-founded reports that these people are now held in secret, incommunicado detention and are at serious risk of torture. One cannot but ask: will the asylum seekers deported from Italy to Libya face the same fate?" the JRS said.

The JRS said the large number of immigrants arriving on Mediterranean shores undoubtedly placed a strain on limited resources. "However, nothing can outweigh the value of human life and therefore, our duty to protect must never be compromised."