NGOs demand end to ill-treatment aboard Captain Morgan

Eighteen civil society organisations and charities have demanded an immediate end to the three-week detention of some 160 men aboard the Captain Morgan ships out at sea at Hurd’s Bank.

The Maltese government is denying the men their right to claim their right to asylum in Malta by holding them out at sea, in a bid to force the European Commission into obtaining a mandatory relocation of the asylum seekers and migrants.

“We are disgusted at the situation of over 160 men detained on the Captain Morgan ships, some for more than three weeks. In detaining them out at sea, Malta is denying them basic human rights, dignity and voice,” the NGOs, among them human rights advocates Aditus Foundation, said.

“The human body and the human spirit can only endure so much. These young men have been exposed to too much trauma, we fear their physical and mental wellbeing will deteriorate fast.

“Malta is responsible for their ongoing detention out at sea and for the conditions they are forced to endure. We remind the authorities that these are compounded by the psychological distress that they would have been forced to endure in the past weeks and months throughout their journey, including the violence that they would have been exposed to in Libya,” spokesperson Neil Falzon said.

The migrants are reportedly on hunger strike in an act of desperation, something Falzon described as the only course of action available to them. “They have no control over the situation, their lives are quite literally in the hands of the government. They are using their bodies, the only resource they have limited control over, to convey a message – to remind the politicians of their legal and moral responsibilities and perhaps also to speak to their conscience. To convey a message to Malta, as a nation, in the hope that we might remember their very presence, recognize and acknowledge their plight, and be the voice that they have been denied.”

The NGOs called on the Maltese government to provide the migrants with the medical and psychological care that they urgently need, and to let them in. “Furthermore, in acknowledgement of the European Union’s duty to act in solidarity with Member States and refugees, we strongly urge the EU institutions to assist Malta in finding a solution to this terrible incident.”

The statement was signed by aditus foundation, African Media Association Malta, Anti-Poverty Forum Malta, Association for Justice, Equality and Peace, Blue Door English

Catholic Voices Malta, The Critical Institute, The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, Dar Hosea, Dar tal-Providenza, Integra Foundation, Jesuit Refugee Service Malta, Justice and Peace Commission, KOPIN, Malta Emigrants’ Commission, MGRM, Migrant Women Association Malta, Moviment Graffitti, Office of the Dean – Faculty for Social Wellbeing, Repubblika, Salesjani Dar Osanna Pia, Segretarjat Assistanza Soċjali tal-Azzjoni Kattolika Maltija, Society of St. Vincent de Paul – Malta, SOS Malta, St. Jeanne Antide Foundation, Spark15, Women’s Rights Foundation, and Youth Alive Foundation.