Migrant's bid to trace husband foiled

A Somali woman broke down in tears yesterday while admitting that she had tried to leave the island illegally in search of her husband she has not seen for two years.

Nimra Hassan Yassin, 21, was desperate to see her husband after finding out that members of his tribe were in Milan and might be able to help her find him.

A friend of the accused, who felt sorry for her, gave her passport to Ms Yassin in an attempt to get her to Italy and begin the search. But the plan was foiled by an alert air hostess.

As Ms Yassin boarded an Air Malta plane, the air hostess who checked her passport noticed she was not the same person pictured on the travel document and so called immigration officers.

As legal aid lawyer Renzo Porsella Flores was explaining his client's predicament to the court, she broke down in tears. She pleaded guilty to trying to leave the island illegally and was jailed for three months by Magistrate Silvio Meli.

Her plight is similar to that of other immigrants who, on being charged with trying to leave the island illegally, said they were trying to reunite with their family.

Mgr Philip Calleja, head of the Emigrants' Commission, recently controversially justified similar actions by an Ethiopian man, saying that had he been in the same position he would have done the same. The man had "no other way left" to join his wife, Mgr Calleja had said.