Mallia warns of migrants’ terrorist threat

Home affairs minister Manuel Mallia today warned that the flow of people into the southern borders of Europe is posing a major security threat.

Addressing the Interpol General Assembly in Monaco, Mallia said that while modern technological developments are one factor which has given opportunistic criminals new openings, the age-old practice of human trafficking for profit has also seen criminal activity burgeoning as a result of increased migration flows away from war zones, towards better economic prospects, or a combination of both.

“This is very clearly seen in the Mediterranean Sea which is the maritime frontier between the continents of Europe and Africa. International criminal organisations have taken over this lucrative trade, taking advantage of the despair faced by large numbers of people. Besides the innate heinousness of this modern equivalent of the slave trade, this flow of people into the southern borders of Europe is also posing a major security threat.”

He added that the possibility of the penetration of Europe’s frontiers by determined terrorists posing as hapless migrants, taking advantage of the networks operated by these criminal organisations is “now being felt strongly.”

Mallia explained that international co-operation combating this should now go beyond the mere term ‘policing of borders’, and move on to real policing.

“We have come to consider policing of borders to be merely patrol operations, very often ending up in search and rescue operations. Real policing on the other hand involves investigation, and most of all information gathering and intelligence, mainly from the countries which are the points of assembly and departure of these human convoys.”

The minister said that this poses the challenge of having these operations carried out in countries and regions where the current climate of conflict leads to an atmosphere of lawlessness which tips the balance much more in favour of the robbers than the cops.

“In such a scenario, the cooperation and information and intelligence sharing between organised police forces on both continents becomes even more crucial.”

Moreover, Mallia said that the loosening, “or even disappearance altogether of certain borders,” such as in the Schengen area, makes the onus of protecting common borders from such infiltration much more of a shared responsibility than it ever was.