UN official Laura Boldrini: “we have to put everything into context who hopes to work with Libya”.Malta should prepare itself for a “challenging summer”, the Home Affairs Minister cautioned as 93 immigrants landed in Malta within the space of eight hours.
Let us be very clear... Nobody chooses to be a refugee- Laura Boldrini
“We were expecting this... We are under no illusions and we have to be prepared to work to handle the influx,” Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said, insisting, however, there was no cause for alarm.
Until the Libyan government regained stability and reorganised itself, difficulties such as patrolling the coast would remain, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said.
He added that ahead of its election in June, immigration was not a main concern for Libya.
“The priority is to get their house in order and immigration is not one of their top priorities, but it will happen slowly.”
Dr Mifsud Bonnici said immigration would be on the agenda when he met his Libyan counterpart in Malta later this month.
On Friday night, 46 immigrants – 36 men and 11 women, two of whom are pregnant – landed at Għar Lapsi. Another dinghy carrying 47 immigrants, 37 men and 10 women, was then intercepted off Żurrieq early yesterday.
Both groups are claiming to be from Somalia and if this is confirmed they will be eligible for asylum. One group claimed the boat left from a beach located a five-hour drive away from the Krimea area of Tripoli, a ministry spokesman said.
“This is not a problem Malta alone faces, but one that afflicts all of Europe,” Dr Mifsud Bonnici said, adding that Malta’s priority was to ensure the UN refugee agency had an active official presence in Libya.
This was something the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, was working to establish in a “more organic way”, Italy-based agency spokesman Laura Boldrini told The Sunday Times. “We are also negotiating with Libyan authorities to have a formal recognition of UNHCR there... but we need to give them time,” she said, acknowledging the situation in the North African country was volatile.
Jon Hoisaeter, head of the agency’s office in Malta, said the UNHCR hoped that in time its efforts to work with the new Libyan authorities could improve the situation.
“However, as things stand it is likely more asylum seekers will try to cross the Mediterranean Sea in the coming months,” he said, when asked what migratory patterns the agency was forecasting in summer.
Luckily, the island has had a breather through repatriation and relocation, which coupled with a quiet spell in boat arrivals has seen the immigrant population in detention centres drop to 538 – one of the lowest in recent years.
Italy’s controversial push-back agreement with Libya’s slain leader Muammar Gaddafi to return migrants rescued at sea back to the North African country also stemmed the flow of irregular migrants.
Now this policy is dead, does it mean European countries will be receiving more immigrants?
“I wouldn’t say this agreement is dead. We don’t know what kind of agreement was reached between the Italian home affairs minister and his Libyan counterpart recently,” Ms Boldrini said.
Mr Hoisaeter and Ms Boldrini both believe the situation in Libya is still evolving and as yet there is no stable and safe environment for asylum seekers and refugees. “Unscrupulous smugglers are exploiting people who continue to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean on overcrowded dinghies... Unfortunately, the new Libya is still marred by instability and lawlessness and sub-Saharan Africans are subjected to targeted attacks and violence,” he said.
Asked what the situation on the ground in Libya was like, Ms Boldrini said the agency knew from immigrants who had already arrived in Malta and Italy that there were “many others” exploring the possibility of leaving Libya and crossing the Mediterranean.
“Let us be very clear, if people put themselves through such a dangerous journey it is because they have no choice, so we shouldn’t be surprised people are trying to reach Europe... Nobody chooses to be a refugee,” she said.
We hope to expand our view if we really want to know what is happening
When the uprising against Col Gaddafi’s regime started last year Malta feared the worst, but the 1.3 million people who escaped the besieged country entered countries like Tunisia and Egypt.
Ms Boldrini has just got back from Kenya where she visited the world’s largest refugee camp in Dadaab, home to nearly 500,000 Somalis. “We have to expand our view if we really want to understand what is happening. If we concentrate our attention only on what’s happening in our backyard we lose the context,” she said.
She pointed out that last year, asylum applications in the 44 industrialised countries stood at around 420,000, a figure far “inferior” to what one refugee camp in Kenya was facing.
“We have to put everything into context or else we feel under siege.”