“Forcibly returning people to a country where they may face ill-treatment and be pushed back into the arms of their persecutors, without an assessment of their need for protection, violates international law,” Jesuit Refugee Service Malta director Fr Joseph Cassar SJ said.

“Such actions constitute a violation of the right to seek asylum and of our obligations to ensure that all asylum seekers within our effective jurisdiction are allowed to seek asylum and protected from forced return to their country. A solution achieved at the expense of human rights cannot be hailed as a victory – it is a loss for the whole of humanity”, he said.

Fr Cassar was speaking on behalf of a coalition of 10 Maltese and international NGOs, church organisations and individuals, comprising Amnesty International Malta Group, Emigrants’ Commission, JRS Malta, JRS Europe, JRS Italia Centro Astalli, Kopin, Médecins Sans Frontières, Migrants’ Solidarity Movement, Moviment Graffiti, SKOP, Mr Terry Gosden and Fra Ġwann Xerri, who issued a statement on the return of 238 migrants to Libya by the Italian authorities.

Yesterday, 238 migrants rescued off Lampedusa were returned to Tripoli in Italian coastguard vessels. Italian Home Affairs minister Roberto Maroni was quoted expressing the hope that from now on all migrants intercepted could be returned to Libya.

“Hailed as a historic development in the fight against irregular immigration, this decision totally ignores the fact that many people making the crossing are in fact in need of international protection. It also ignores the fact that it is very difficult for asylum seekers to obtain effective protection in Libya or in the other countries through which they transit on the way to Europe”, the organisations said.

They said that inMalta alone more than half of those who applied for asylum were granted some form of protection. They used an irregular route because it wasimpossible for them to reach a place of safety in any other way.

It was clear that states had a right and duty to control their borders, but any measures implemented had to be in line with human rights legislation, which forbid the return of people to countries where they might face serious harm.

The coalition called upon all European governments to uphold the right to seek asylum, enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, and by ensuring that:

* asylum seekers within their effective jurisdiction were allowed access to a territory where they could seek asylum, so all in need of protection could be identified and granted the protection they needed; and

* no one was sent to a country where they might face serious violations of their human rights.