Discussions have been heating up again about Malta’s situation with regard to irregular migrants and intentions to send them home. I would like to throw in some thoughts.

Malta has received millions of euros from the EU in the last six years for managing immigrants.

This EU funding has covered the costs of the detention centres, AWAS (Agency for Welfare of Asylum Seekers), the Refugee Commission, open centres and so on.

We have also been told that millions of euros in approved EU funds were not used.

Let’s also remember the hundreds who are employed in jobs related to irregular migrants.

Now imagine experiencing fear for our life. We have all seen pictures and videos of dead bodies in the desert. I don’t know which is harder to think of: the fact that tens of thousands die every year on their journey or the notion of what asylum seekers have gone through having survived the trip.

Besides being cheated out of their money by ruthless traffickers, besides being beaten, put into prison, forced onto boats that are clearly not fit for the journey, there is yet another angle to think about.

We are all sons and daughters of somebody.

How many times have we heard of what females go through in certain war-torn countries?

Imagine for a moment the fate of these same women if they are sent back to their country.

Do you think they will be welcomed with food and care or that they would be dumped in prison yet again?

Libya is a beautiful country and I am very sad about the tragic situation unfolding there. But it is also, like many other countries, a place where human rights aren’t of any value, nor is any emigrant. Suffice it to say that the United Nations’ Refugee Convention of 1951 is totally disregarded.

The Sahara is big, stunning and quiet. Its sand covers many tragic secrets, including bodies of refugees who had been rounded up in Libya because they had no legal papers. There are bodies of other asylum seekers returned from other countries, taken to the desert and shot.

There are reports of would-be refugees forced to dig their own graves; sometimes they are used as targets after they are told to walk off. And all the time these humans know what they are facing. They know that when they are sent back, they will be beaten and raped again.

They know this when they get loaded onto a truck and transported. There are some who are lucky and do not have to face this horrid scenario. They might ‘just’ get deserted in the middle of nowhere. There are some who were sent back to their country where ‘only’ prison was waiting.

We have to keep this in mind. This is reality. This is not just a picture in the news. It would have an impact in our lives as Christians if we agree with such initiatives.

In Matthew 25:40 we find: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”

How would St Paul be welcomed in Malta today?

It is not said that this would be easy to do.

Since we are a Christian country, we mostly claim to personally have Christ in our lives and not only displayed as a name of our houses. Malta is known as the country with so many churches. Can it be known also as an island of compassion? Do we really understand and respond when we hear the word of God in the church service?

War has come to Malta many times before. If there would be war again, would we be forced to become refugees? In the Bible, we read that Malta was the country where St Paul was shipwrecked. And he was welcomed by the people. There was love and compassion.

We are proud that St Paul is a part of our history. We like to mark the feast of St Paul and the other patrons and saints.

We cannot imagine Malta without these events. I wonder how St Paul would be welcomed in Malta today.

Many people, whose lives were saved by being granted asylum in a country other than their own home country, became famous. Think about it: Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Madeleine Albright, Jackie Chan…