The hopelessness of immigrants detained at the Safi barracks was “unmatched even in camps in Darfur and northern Uganda”, according to the US-based International Medical Corps.

After visiting the barracks, IMC senior medical adviser Jeff Goodman expressed concern that at 11 a.m. at least half the residents had not got out of bed because there was “no reason” for them to do so.

“In camps in Darfur and northern Uganda there might be shortages of food or medicine, but the inhabitants had a clear sense that every effort was being made to address their needs,” he said.

The revelation emerged in a Wikileaks US Embassy cable, titled ‘Immigration debate roils political scene’, written by former chargé d’affaires Jason Davis that gives the Secretary of State an overview of the immigration situation in Malta.

Mr Goodman had been invited to visit the detention centre in March 2009 by then Health Minister John Dalli to explore the possibility of the IMC providing medical care, either alongside Médicins Sans Frontières, or instead of it. Media reports about the conditions in Darfur at the time, when thousands were fleeing the ethnic conflict in Sudan, described the camps as nothing short of “horrible”.

It was a rancorous period when migration had risen to the top of the political agenda and the government was being criticised by NGOs, the UN refugee agency and even the Church for its 18-month detention policy.

It was the time when in the first three months of 2009 more than 750 immigrants had landed and Médicins Sans Frontières withdrew from the detention centre because of the government’s unwillingness to deal with “appalling” and “inhumane” conditions in the centre.

There was also a wave of anti-immigrant public sentiment opposed to seeing funds directed towards improving conditions in the detention centres or expanding social services for immigrants.

“Immigrants are subjected to intolerant (though almost never violent) treatment by Maltese nationals (even American citizens of African descent are sometimes refused entrance to nightclubs or not allowed to board public buses),” Mr Davis writes in his cable, singling out Gozo Bishop Mario Grech for his strong criticism of the detention policy. Against this backdrop, Mr Goodman questioned whether IMC would be able to go into the centres under such conditions or what “value added” it could provide.

Concluding his cable, Mr Davis remarked that the government was “extremely slow” in improving some of the conditions at the closed centres. “The issue is not so much funding... but poor organisational skills, an overtaxed bureaucracy, and unfortunately, a sense among some mid-ranking government officials that improving conditions or shortening the detention period might create a ‘pull factor’,” he said.

“The Prime Minister and other senior officials are sympathetic to the plight of the detainees, but have so far not managed to motivate the bureaucracy.”