It is hard to stamp out the images of heavily pregnant asylum seekers reaching Malta on rickety boats or shut out the stories of babies born at sea because the mother did not reach safe shores in time. Kristina Chetcuti traces the journey of two women who live with the psychological wounds of the costly trauma.

Hema*, 23, from Somalia, Muslim

Hema waded urgently, mid-waist, in the dark sea off the coast of Tripoli. Two men reached out and roughly flung her into the bottom of a boat already dunk in a mixture of sea water and fuel. She spent the next five days lying there, with her hand on her tummy. She was two-and-a-half months pregnant.

"It was the only way I felt I could protect my unborn child," she recalls.

She was taken for dead; none of the other people on the boat with her thought she'd make it.

Talking about the boat journey for Hema is a nightmare she barely wants to relive. She left her home country, Somalia, early last year. She belongs to Rer Hamar, a very small minority group: "We are the lowest of the lowest of minority groups, so we were totally powerless in Somalia's state of civil war. We were constantly under pressure to leave. I couldn't go outside. I would either have been raped or kidnapped."

Hema married her childhood sweetheart and neighbour just before they left Somalia with a friend of her husband's. They used their life savings to travel to the border of Ethiopia and from there - on foot for three days and three nights - reached the border of Sudan. There they were caught by the Sudanese police, who recognised their plea and held them in the border town of Girba until they were issued with the necessary paperwork to facilitate their movement.

Luck was not on their side. The roof of the host family's house they were staying at caved in on their first night there.

"My husband's friend - only 23 years old - died beneath the rubble. We had to bury him and continue our journey," she says, her voice barely audible, betraying the anguish of that night.

They reached the Libyan border after more than a week of constant walking. There was no time for respite. Together with other Somali refugees, they were arrested and taken to a detention centre in Ganfuda, Benghazi. The director there immediately made the undocumented migrants aware they would only be released upon receipt of $1,000.

"He slammed down a phone in front of us, telling us to call relatives to send the money. We didn't know anyone with that kind of money," she says.

"It was a prison. We were 80 women sleeping on cartons in a four-by-three-metre room. We were all malnourished and suffering from scabies. For the men it was worse. They had to sleep on their sides. There was no space for them to lie on their backs."

They were locked in for eight months and only released when the director realised no money could be made from the couple.

They eventually reached Tripoli where her husband, a qualified electrician and student engineer, worked as a porter and waiter for about two months. All the while they kept a low profile and Hema would not even go to the doctor to treat her scabies for fear of being found out. They found a "business dealer" who was coordinating a boat leaving for the Italian coastline. He asked for $900 per traveller.

"We only had money for one fare," she says, adding it was then she discovered she was two months pregnant.

"My husband urged me to go, saying he would reach me later when he would have saved enough money for his fare. At that point it was a choice between two evils. If I stayed, I was risking imprisonment. I thought perhaps it was better for me, and for my child's future, to face the sea."

Two nights before she was meant to leave, in November, their apartment was raided and her husband was arrested.

"That's the last time I saw my husband. I don't know how they didn't take me as well. I think it's because they saw how sick I was," she says, crying quietly.

She managed to keep the plan and joined another 68 people (of whom 13 were women) on a nine-by-four-metre boat. She did not say she was pregnant at any point.

"But, in any case, there is no time for the smugglers to choose the people for the trip. On the whole, they prefer men; they are afraid women might disrupt the plans by being too slow to catch up or not able to carry the provisions."

They were on that boat, with no crew or people with seafaring experience, for five days and five nights.

"It was cold. Everybody was afraid. After some time people started suffering from hallucinations. Our skin was peeling away with the fuel and seawater. I was very sick... I kept thinking of my child."

Her voice trails off. She does not give more details about the journey. When asked if the women were vulnerable to rape, she is categorical in her reply: "No. Not in the least. Everybody is too scared. Everybody is thinking about surviving. There is no place for these things."

They were eventually rescued by a Russian ship.

"There was a rush to go aboard. A young man fell and drowned. I saw him fall by my side," she says, pressing her palms to her eyes and falling silent.

When she reached Malta she was admitted to hospital and given 70 bottles of intravenous fluids to fight her severe dehydration. She remained in hospital for the next six months until her daughter was born in April.

Although she has been given subsidiary protection, her future is dark. She is still clearly in a state of shock. At 23, she had no idea her life would turn out like this. She has never been able to contact her husband and she believes he is still imprisoned in Libya.

"He has not even seen a picture of his daughter," she said.

Interpreter Adul Kadir, assistant social worker and a cultural advisor at the Marsa open centre, facilitated the interview.

Lemtem*, 36, from Eritrea, Christian

Lemtem watched horrified and helpless as a breastfeeding mother went down to the bottom of the dark sea, her month-old baby with her. Hours later, she would watch another body being washed away by the cold Mediterranean sea - her husband's.

Lemtem is brief in her explanation as to why they left their country in 2006: "My husband was in the Eritrean military service. He had no choice - he had to leave. As his wife, if I stayed on, I would have been imprisoned."

She left her eight-year old daughter with close relatives. "I couldn't possibly take my daughter with me. How could I if I didn't know my destination? I did not want to risk her life." It was a painful decision but, at least, she was certain her daughter was still too young to be held accountable for her parent's sudden disappearance.

Lemtem and her husband travelled on foot from Eritrea to Sudan and from there they crossed the desert and walked for days on end till they reached Libya.

"We stayed in Tripoli for 10 months as we had to wait for the right weather conditions to travel by boat. My husband worked to support our day-to-day living but we had already saved the money for the boat fares: $1,200 each," she says.

One night, in August 2007, they made it to a beach out of sight of the authorities. They were given drums of fuel, fresh water and food, which they had to carry to the boat.

"The boat was not docked but was anchored far out, so we had to wade to get to it. There were 27 of us crowded in a tiny boat that was not more than two metres long. How many women? Just six. Smugglers are not too keen on taking women," she adds.

The boat was so low in the water they had to bail from the shore. They left on Tuesday night and by Thursday afternoon the boat had sunk. "We had life jackets but we were in the freezing water through all of Thursday night right till Friday afternoon," she said.

There weren't even bits of the wooden carcass of the boat to cling to. It was just them and the open sea. "Over the hours people kept slipping into the water. The sense of hopelessness was overwhelming. People were just opening their life jackets and letting go. It was terrible. Terrible."

They were picked up by a passing trade ship on Friday afternoon. By then 15 people had died, including her husband. He never got to know he was to be a father again. At that point she had no clue either. It was only in hospital in Malta that she was told she was one month pregnant.

How did she take the news that she was carrying the baby of her dead husband?

Her animated voice abruptly falls silent, for a long time. She ignores the interpreter and looks straight into my eyes. "Bakat," she says softly, "Bakat," she repeats, this time silent tears trailing her cheeks. The interpreter translates: "I cried."

Lemtem keeps looking at me and in her eyes there is something bigger than pain. "God is almighty," she says eventually. "I thank God for all the strength he gives me."

Would she have got on the boat if she had known she was pregnant?

"If I had known I would have taken the trip with a big boat and not a small one," she replies.

But why would a woman opt for such an arduous journey at such a vulnerable stage?

"You have to understand that once you are in Tripoli there is no choice."

Did they have equipment to call for help?

She flares up in anger and talks animatedly to the interpreter: "Yes, we had a phone. We asked for help on our second day of the journey. A rescue plane came over three times, hovering above us, taking pictures but that was it. No one would have died if, instead of taking pictures, they came to our rescue. I am so angry about this. My husband would still be alive."

Lentem now lives in a private apartment in Valletta with her 18-month-old son. She bakes engera, bread typical of Eritrea, and sells it to a restaurant in Marsa.

She will soon be leaving Malta for the US as she has been granted full refugee status and has been admitted for relocation. Once there, she wants to make a plea for family reunification and bring her daughter over.

"Please God, we'll be a family once more."

Habtom, who has lived in Malta for three years, facilitated the interview.

* Names have been changed to protect the persons' identity.

Dispelling the myths

Myth 1: Pregnant migrant women are taken up on the boat purposely so as to ensure quicker rescue.

False. Smugglers do not have the time to choose the people who go on the boat.

Myth 2: Children of migrants born in Malta attain Maltese citizenship.

False. Children born to migrants take on the exact legal status as their parents. For example, a baby born to a mother with subsidiary protection will have her same status.

Myth 3: Migrants are the source of several new diseases on the island.

False. On the contrary, the migratory process, such as crowded living conditions and poverty, can expose migrants to ill health. This myth simply serves to increase xenophobia and, ironically, increase vulnerability.

Myth 4: Migrants are taking the jobs of Maltese people.

False. Migrants are usually relegated to the bottom of the job ladder, taking jobs others do not want and are the first to be made redundant in a crisis. On the contrary, more control is needed to ensure migrants are not exploited through low wages.

Myth 5: All migrants are Muslim.

False. Africa, just like Europe, is a diverse continent. Of course, there are migrants who are Muslims but others belong to a variety of religions, including different Christian denominations, such as Anglicans and Roman Catholics.

Myth 6: Migrants in Malta do not need to work as they are heavily subsidised by the Maltese government

False. Just like the rest of us, migrants have to work to survive and feed their families. Migrants also need to work in a regular manner where their rights, and the rights of other workers, are protected. Indeed, many migrants are working in Malta and therefore contributing to the tax and welfare system.

Myth 7: All migrants arriving and living in Malta are illegal.

False. There is no such thing as an "illegal" person. Arrival in Malta without the appropriate papers is a violation of the Immigration Act and not a criminal act. Once they apply for asylum, they are effectively regularising their legal status. The majority of asylum seekers in Malta receive some sort of protection.

Myth 8: All migrants have a low level of education.

False. The migrants arriving in Malta from sub-Saharan Africa are diverse. Several come with a tertiary level of education and are doctors, economists or even IT specialists.

Others would have had to disrupt their education as a result of the push factors forcing them to migrate.

This information was supplied by Maria Pisani, coord-inator at the Malta office of the International Organisation for Migration.