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More migrants rescued as minister resigns
65 Eritrean and Somali refugees rescued from sinking dinghy on joint Maltese, Italian and Libyan operation.
31 May 2012, 12:00am
Karl Stagno-Navarra
Karl Stagno-Navarra
1 min read
Some of the migrants aboard AFM patrol craft P52 as they arrived in Malta late last night after being rescued on the high seas (Photo: AFM/Justin Gatt)
Another group of Eritrean and Somali refugees fleeing Libya were this morning brought in to Malta after being rescued from a sinking dinghy on the high seas, to the South West of Malta.
The migrants - 65 in all - were said to have been seeking assistance since last Tuesday after their engine failed and drifted in the Mediterranean.
The Maltese Armed Forces were informed about the distressed migrants by the Italian rescue coordination centre in Rome, which also involved the Libyan navy which searched for the dinghy according to sporadic coordinates which were collected from brief satellite phone calls for help by the same migrants.
It was only yesterday afternoon, while parliament debated the a motion which led to the resignation later in the evening of home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici, that the AFM intercepted the sinking dinghy and rescued the migrants.
Shortly before resigning, Carm Mifsud Bonnici announced that Libya's interior minister and the UNHCR chief will be in Malta for talks next week, in a bid to find solutions to the current migrant emergency.
This morning's arrival brings the total of migrants arriving in Malta to almost 400 since the weekend.
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Now Dr Gonzi has the ministry of home affairs and is responsible for illegal immigrant issues. Dr Gonzi has in the past approached this problem by preaching that Christian values, the good Samaritan and St Paul's shipwreck come before the national interest.
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However, Il Corriere gives a different version. See
http://www.corriere.it/cronache/12_maggio_30/sbarchi-immigrati-sessantacinque-salvati-canalesicilia_204d3f84-aa91-11e1-8196-b3ccb09a7f99.shtml
Canale di Sicilia, 65 migranti salvati in mare. Erano su un gommone alla deriva: recuperati con una complessa operazione congiunta Italia, Malta e Libia. I fatti risalgono alla notte tra martedì e mercoledì quando un gommone di circa 12 metri, in difficoltà al largo delle coste libiche, è stato segnalato alla Guardia costiera italiana. Sono quindi stati avviati i primi contatti tra la centrale operativa del Comando generale della guardia costiera e i colleghi libici.
If the boat was off the Libyan coast (al largo delle coste libiche) why was it allowed to enter Maltese waters before being « rescued »? As the Libyan authorities were also involved in the “rescue” could they not have taken the boat back to where it started from? It seems the Italians wanted to make sure the dinghy was “rescued” in Maltese waters and the AFM fell in their trap. What game is Italy playing?
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We are told 65 "migrants" "rescued". The censorship machine is working overnight. They are not migrants but illegal immigrants and they were not rescued. They came to join their kinfolk in Malta. They did not do it the legal way by asking for family reunification but the illegal way by taking a dinghy, paying for the trip and calling for help for the AFM to bring them the last party of the trip. We pay the AFM to defend Malta.
“This morning's arrival brings the total of migrants arriving in Malta to almost 400 since the weekend.” Will UNHCR take care of them? Will JRS? Or will the government of Malta paid from our taxes?
