Editorial

If the Libya crisis has proved anything to the biggest cynics, it is that Muammar Gaddafi has deployed brutal tactics to coordinate the flow of African immigrants into Europe from the comfort of his tent.

Few of us close to Libya’s shores can forget Mr Gaddafi’s blackmail threat that Europe would turn black if the EU failed to dish out the €5 billion he was demanding.

For decades, the Western world turned a blind eye to human rights abuses in the North African country while it was busy making lucrative use Libya’s vast oil resources.

But the arrival of more than 850 immigrants in Malta as well as the thousands who have landed in Lampedusa over the past week is evidence that Mr Gaddafi has decided to strike back.

However, these immigrants were barely within rowing distance of Malta’s shores when an army of armchair online commenters started urging the government to send them back to Libya, irrespective of the consequences. Some of these people claim to be Christians.

Despite justified criticism from humanitarian organisations, in 2009 Rome shamefully ignored the fact that Libya was not a signatory to the UN Convention for protection of refugees and signed a pushback agreement with Tripoli, which saw African migrants intercepted in international waters and turned back.

Amid a sharp drop in arrivals, the European Commission and the Maltese government played down immigrants’ claims that they had been maltreated and even tortured because it was convenient to do so. The convenience has now come to an end.

We need to first fight the prejudiced and wholly unjustified view that all those arriving on our shores are ‘invaders’. It is irresponsible to oversimplify or exaggerate the situation as some sections of the media are doing.

Yes, some of those arriving on packed boats may be economic refugees – Tunisians or Egyptians searching for a better life – who could be turned back. But the majority of those who landed in Malta last week were Eritreans and Somalis fleeing strife many of us have thankfully never witnessed or experienced.

Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici pointed out that many of them arrived with suitcases, indicating they had fled their own homes in Libya because it had become a warzone.

The scenario many of us had feared seems to be becoming reality and Europe needs to realise – with considerably more speed than it reacted to the Libya crisis – the humanitarian emergency unfolding on its, and particularly our, doorstep.

However, while it is vital to deal with the effects, it is equally important to target the source of the problem.

Urging the government to claim the island is full or to turn back the immigrants is nothing more than a simplistic, heartless response which contradicts the very notion of solidarity which many like to profess. It also runs contrary to our international obligations.

The government must explain that in the same way that Malta aided the evacuation of thousands of foreign nationals from Libya, it must also play a part in the evacuation of stricken Africans.

However, the EU cannot stand by, as it has done to date, and idly watch. It has been weeks since Italy and Malta warned their EU counterparts of a potential exodus, and virtually nothing has been done to turn burden-sharing words into action.

The image of a home in Lampedusa displaying an EU flag with a yellow question mark painted in the middle sums up how many feel. If we do our bit, and do it we must, then the EU must do its bit too.