Migrants and the criminal organisations that exploit them have turned their attention to the Central Mediterranean route after the deployment of EU personnel to the Greek-Turkish border has rendered that path into Europe more secure, according to a senior official of the EU’s boarder agency.

Gil Arias Fernandes, the deputy director of Frontex, yesterday confirmed that Malta and Italy were now bearing the biggest brunt of illegal immigration into the EU after the pressure on the Greek-Turkish border subsided.

In the first three months of the year, particularly since the start of the Libyan conflict, the sea borders between Libya, Lampedusa and Malta have been wide open, he said.

During that time, a total of 32,906 asylum seekers and illegal immigrants have been stopped at the EU’s borders, particularly by Italy, Malta and Greece. But the biggest chunk, 22,000, arrived in boats from Libya at the island of Lampedusa, which has only 6,000 inhabitants. Another 1,300 arrived in Malta and 7,200 crossed illegally into Greece from Turkey, almost half the number observed during the first three months of 2010.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had warned before the war that the EU would be “invaded” by black Africans if it dared attack Libya. This declaration was followed by Mahmud Baghdadi, the Prime Minister, admitting that Libya’s doors to illegal immigration were “wide open” as the country could no longer control its sea borders due to the Nato attacks.

According to the Italian government, Africans arriving in Lampedusa have been pointing a finger at the Libyan authorities for being behind the trafficking of illegal immigrants to Europe. The migrants have made claims about being forced aboard boats and escorted by Libyan navy vessels towards Italy and Malta.

Despite the latest pressure on Malta and Italy, Frontex’s deputy director said his agency still took the view that Turkey would remain the main border-crossing country of the EU for illegal immigration.

He said that between November 2010 and early March 2011, Frontex’s RABIT mission – with border guards from all EU countries dispatched to Greece — had managed to bring down the number of illegal crossings from Turkey to just 52 daily as opposed to 245 daily before the mission was put in place.

According to Malta’s refugee commission, arrivals of immigrants this year have already surpassed the average since 2002. A total of 1,530 arrived on seven boats. The majority of landings in Malta are normally observed during the summer months.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.