[WATCH] Minister brushes off concerns on poor detention centre conditions

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Home affairs minister Carmelo Abela has played down concerns that migrants being housed in the Safi detention centre ahead of their planned deportation to Mali are being subjected to inhumane conditions.

Jean-Paul Borg, a volunteer with the human rights NGO Integra, was allowed access to the centre on Friday and lift the lid on the squalid conditions that the migrants have been subjected to.

“There are more flies than people. A small room is being shared by four [migrants] on two by two bunk beds,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “The mattress is thin and the pillows have no vest. Tea was presented to most in half plastic water bottles. From what I could see, access to fresh air is very limited. Christmas Day will represent the 41st day of detention. I am not sure it will be a cause for celebration.”

Moreover, Borg told MaltaToday that the guards at the detention centre are “not exactly in favour of inclusion to put it lightly”.

However, when questioned by the press during a visit to the police force's traffic section, Abela said that NGOs have full access to the detention centre and that none of them had ever personally complained about its state to him.

“Indeed, the detention centre’s workers have taken advantage of the recent shortage of people housed inside it to carry out maintenance and beautification works on the centre,” he said. “Obviously it’s not a hotel but a closed centre, but it doesn’t result that the conditions or physical environment have deteriorated.”