Thursday, 26th June 2008

Illegal immigrants rescued by tugboat

Twenty-six illegal immigrants were rescued last night by the tugboat Akwadem 2 about 26 miles south of Malta after the boat they were on capsized, the Armed Forces of Malta said.

Four of the immigrants needed urgent medical treatment and were airlifted to Mater Dei Hospital.

The immigrants were expected ashore at Haywharf, Pieta late last night.

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Article © Allied Newspapers Ltd., printed on Sunday, November 8, 2009. This article is for personal use only, and should not be distributed.

Comments

Andrew Gatt (on 27/6/08)

Lee Zammit, your thinking is remarkaly naive! Hop over to neighouring Sicily and Italy and see what's going on in their streets, squares and pulic gardens.

Also, for the umpteenth time, most of these people are ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. Boat people???!!!!?? Yes, if you mean they arrive here by boats (all the same size, all the same number, coincidentally!!!!!!!!!!

Corinne Vella (on 26/6/08)

John Cassar: Your suggestion for checking, feeding and depositing 'the illegals' at embassy doors cannot be taken up principally for legal reasons, but logistically it is not realisable anyway. Many of the countries from which 'the illegals' come do not have embassies here.

It might be worth taking a wider look at the immigration flows. Many migrants do not leave Africa at all and Malta is not the only Mediterranean EU country to receive migrants - Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Cyprus do too. The situation is hardly desirable for anyone, but Iit is less so for the migrants themselves than it is for the countries that receive them, however unwillingly.

Joanne Micallef (on 26/6/08)

I disagree, they are illegal immigrants, the majority of whom have been working in Libya for years in order to get enough funds to leave for what they perceive as the European Dream. Only a minority are genuine refugees up until now from the 10,000 plus that have arrived only about 200 were awarded refugee status, others were granted humanitarian protection a status which is only given in Malta, the rest are economic migrants who have entered not only illegally but under false pretences.
As for buying products made in Malta, please dont forget that we fund their stay here, so anything they buy they are doing it with our money.

lee zammit (on 26/6/08)

The term being used to describe these people should not be illegal immigrants. These should be described correctly as boat people leaving their country because of economic or war reasons. Remember the boat people from Vietnam? They should be helped like Malta is doing. When they get on their feet, they'll will remember the help they received and maybe buy products made in Malta. Malta is receiving a lot of aid to help these people and is not costing anything to the taxpayers.

John cassar (on 26/6/08)

It seems that there is no end in sight. I know that they are our brothers and sisters, but what has to happen for individual countries to take malta seriously? May be the illegals, once checked and fed, should be dropped off at the embassies of the countries where the illegals originate from. One might say it is cruel but what else can one do? At least someone else can foot the bill and not be a drain on Malta's resources. It's always words and no action. May the authorities get real for once!