A total 238 migrants who were in Malta received assistance to voluntarily return to their country of origin since 2009, the International Organisation for Migration said today.

Speaking at a conference this morning, IOM spokeswoman Laura Maciulskaite said the number of migrants signing up for voluntary assisted return initiatives had more than doubled since the first programme five years ago.

Last year, some 75 migrants decided to return home, including three young children. 

Ms Maciulskaite said the migrants were mostly men aged between 18-39 showing that the majority of migrants choosing to return had left their country of origin for economic reasons.

So far this year, 31 migrants have chosen to be repatriated, including 11 to Egypt.

Speaking to Times of Malta from the sidelines of the conference, Ms Maciulskaite said there was no pattern to tell how long migrants stayed in Malta before they chose to return home.

“We have some who have lived here for years and then chose to return home when they made enough money. We have others who have come to us straight after leaving detention. It depends. We are dealing with people and each one has their own story,” she said.

Ms Maciulskaite later added that a common phenomenon was for migrants arriving together to leave together.

“The group of Egyptians we sent this year had arrived together and chose to leave at roughly the same time,” she said.

Turning to the main challenges facing the IOM when it came to voluntary assisted return, Ms Maciulskaite said the situation changed from year to year, as migration flows and climates in countries of origin evolved.

“The majority of returnees go back to sub Saharan Africa. When the Libya crisis first started, we had a situation where we had no embassies as these were all in Tripoli and had been closed,” she said.