Migrants in first half of 2013 total 600

UNHCR statistics put the total number of immigrants who have arrived in Malta during the first half of 2013 at 600.

The unofficial estimate of total asylum seekers who have made a claim for protection, when one adds last week's arrivals, totals 900 - a number which is not too high when compared to figures for recent years.

The year with the largest number of arrivals to Malta was 2008, with 2,775 people reaching our shores in 84 boats.

Strikingly low is the total for 2010, when 47 migrants arrived in Malta on two boats.

During 2010, Italy had employed a push-back policy similar to the one Prime Minister Joseph Muscat used last Tuesday, when he announced his decision to send 40 migrants out of 100 who had arrived earlier that day back to Libya. Muscat's plan was stopped when the European Court of Human Rights intervened.

Although Italy was condemned and fined for its actions, then home affairs minister Tonio Borg had said that although Malta would continue to honour international obligations, he could not argue against the Italian policy, which had had a positive effect on Malta.

Earlier still - in 2002 - Malta was also on the receiving end of international condemnation when it became known that around 220 Eritreans had been sent back to their country by the Nationalist government. According to Amnesty International, these people were tortured and kept for several weeks in detention centres and prisons, where they were forced to carry out hard labour.

Although influx of migrants may make it seem as though this has been a problem Malta has faced for a long time, the arrivals began in 2002, amid negotiations between Malta and the EU, to endow the country with a member status.

As of the end of 2012, six out of 10 migrants in Malta were living in the Half Far detention centre. The second largest number lived in Marsa (262, or 15 per cent of the total). Meanwhile, 50 lived in Fgura, 26 in Floriana and 24 in Birkirkara.

65 per cent of migrants to Malta hail from Somalia - one of the countries worst hit by humanitarian crises, with extreme violence leading people to leave the country in search of safety.

About 25 per cent of arrivals, meanwhile, are from Eritrea, where, in 2002, mandatory conscription was enforced on all people between 18 and 50. All those who refused were arrested and thrown into prison.