Asylum boat crossings to Malta lowest since 2018

Asylum claims lodged in Malta in 2022 were lower than in the previous year, despite a growing number of crossings through the treacherous Central Mediterranean route.

Detections of boat migrants attempting the deadly route rose by over 50% to 106,000 in 2022, making it the second busiest route for asylum seekers into Europe.

In a sign of the growing fatalities of the route, detections outnumbered asylum claims in Italy and Malta, the two countries along this route.

While asylum claims lodged in Malta were lower than in the previous year – 444 sea arrivals compared to 832 – applications in Italy increased by over one-half in 2022. Illegal arrivals surged in May 2022 and increased further in July and August 2022.

In 2022, Malta granted refugee status or subsidiary protection in just 6% of total decisions.

While boats departed mainly from Libya, two boats also departed from Lebanon and were rescued by AFM in the Maltese SRR and disembarked in Malta. In 2022, there were no sea arrivals from Eritrea and Sudan, which represented 26% and 12%, respectively, of arrivals in 2021. However, 2022 saw a much greater proportion of those rescued coming from Bangladesh (51%) and from the Syrian Arab Republic (Syria) (28% in 2022, as opposed to 16% in 2021).

‘Dublin’ transfers to Malta

Malta was also at the forefront of ‘Dublin’ requests, which forces border countries to take back asylum seekers that lodge their claims in secondary countries of movement.

In 2022, the overall rate of acceptance of responsibility was 60% of Dublin requests, with increases coming from Hungary (+29 points), Bulgaria (+24 points) and Malta (+16 points). In contrast, a significant decrease was recorded in Spain (-9 points). Acceptance rates varied from over 80% in Croatia and Lithuania, to 1% in Greece.

The Dublin III Regulation distinguishes between ‘take back’ and ‘take charge’ requests: member states can send ‘take back’ requests to other member states for asylum seekers who had already filed an original asylum claim in the first member state.

Conversely, a member state may send a ‘take charge’ request asking another member state to assume responsibility for an applicant who did not apply for asylum, but for which the other member state is responsible under Dublin III criteria: family reunion – in particular for unaccompanied minors – visa or residence documentation, entry or stay reasons, and humanitarian reasons.

Still, several Dublin transfers to Malta were halted due to the island’s detention policy: for example, a Rome tribunal annulled the transfer of an asylum seeker who had already been detained in Malta for 16 months, fell ill due to the conditions and had to be hospitalised for two months.

Likewise, the Dutch Council of State upheld a case concerning two applicants, including a child who suffered trauma in Malta and experienced PTSD. The court stated that the child would be at risk of a significant and irreversible impact on her health if transferred back to Malta.

The council added that, even though the medical advice concluded that the child was physically fit to travel, the Dutch authorities should have been more active to fulfil their duty to clarify any serious doubts about the impact of the transfer on the child’s health – the Dutch migration authorities do not transfer vulnerable asylum seekers to Malta if they are facing detention.

The Constitutional Court in Austria also disagreed with a decision by the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG) to forge ahead with the transfer of a Syrian national to Malta: he claimed Malta would violate his rights by placing him in detention.

Accelerated procedures criticised

The Maltese human rights organisation Aditus has also strongly criticised the presence of several countries on the safe country list in Malta because they discriminate and criminalise LGBTIQ individuals. Aditus said this practice undermines the proper safeguards at second instance for these individuals who are fleeing persecution based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, especially in cases where the first instance decision rejects the application as manifestly unfounded. Malta’s International Protection Agency (IPA) stated that all procedural guarantees apply within the accelerated procedure.

The European Court of Human Rights in 2023 ruled a breach of an asylum claimant’s right to a fair trial when his rejected application for protection was automatically reviewed by the International Protection Appeals Tribunal without hearing him or without a clear possibility of a further appeal. In 2022, concerning the case of a different applicant, the ECHR held that the accelerated asylum procedure did not offer effective guarantees to protect the applicant from an arbitrary removal.

80% of refugees from Ukraine

A combined total of 5 million people arrived in Europe in 2022, adding acute pressure on already-strained reception places in many countries, the EU’s Asylum Agency (EUAA) said in its annual report.

Of these, 4 million fled Ukraine and registered for temporary protection.

In total, 7 out of every 10 applications were lodged in five receiving countries, namely Germany (244,000 applications), France (156,000), Spain (118,000), Austria (109,000) and Italy (84,000).

During the record levels of 2015 and 2016, applications for international protection were primarily lodged by nationals of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

In 2022, however, the surge in applications was due to a much wider range of nationalities seeking protection in Europe. As previously, the main countries of origin were Syria (with 138,000 applications) and Afghanistan (132,000), in addition to Türkiye (58,000), Venezuela (51,000) and Colombia (43,000).