Frendo insists on urgent action

"We need urgent action. For us this is an issue of vital importance. The message to the international criminal organisations must be that no route is easy anymore", Minister for Foreign Affairs Michael Frendo told the Ministerial Conference on Migration and Development in Rabat, Morocco, yesterday.

Dr Frendo said: "We find dead bodies floating in the Mediterranean regularly and receive boatloads of illegal immigrants, sometimes daily. The Minister said the smaller and the more densely populated the country, the bigger the problem.

Dr Frendo remarked that for Malta illegal immigration is not just another problem like any other problem on which conferences are held... "this for us is an issue of vital importance and we ask our African brothers to understand this".

When referring to the migratory routes as being inter-linked, Dr Frendo said that we couldn't tackle only the Western Mediterranean route as this was only part of the problem. The Central Mediterranean route needs tackling as well and therefore the EU-AU Tripoli conference must be held as well this year.

Dr Frendo remarked that Article 13 of the Cotonou Agreement was an international obligation of repatriation of illegal migrants and this obligation must be respected.

Earlier in his speech Dr Frendo explained that in terms of population density, what Malta has experienced in the past two weeks was equivalent to 75,000 illegal immigrants in France or 50,000 in Spain.

Dr Frendo said that the solution lay on development, fighting international criminal organisations, repatriation of illegal immigrants, and stopping the flow of illegal migration.