Human rights NGOs urge Malta to resettle refugees from camps

A group of human rights NGOs have urged Malta to participate in UN efforts to resettle refugees directly from camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

“This would restore the refugees’ hopes of a future of safety, dignity and respect,” NGOs aditus, JRS Malta and Integra said in a joint statement. “Providing safe and legal ways to reach a place of safety is the most effective way to prevent refugees from resorting to unsafe and irregular means of travel to access Europe, thereby saving lives.

“It would also be Malta’s firm message to the European Union, and to the international community, that the current response to the refugee crisis is unacceptable and requires immediate revision.”

Their statement comes a day after Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and foreign minister George Vella visited the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, where some 89,000 Syrian refugees have found shelter.

During the tour, Muscat said that Malta would call on the EU to provide further assistance to border countries such as Jordan and Lebanon.

The NGOs welcomed the Prime Minister’s declaration but called on him to go a step further and participate in the EU’s agreement with Turkey to directly resettle Syrian refugees from Turkish camps into Europe.

“The Prime Minister’s visit to Jordan’s Al Za’atari Refugee Camp offers Malta the unique opportunity to express true solidarity with Jordan and with the refugees living in the Camp,” the NGOs said. “Al Za’atari Refugee Camp hosts around 80,000 refugees, making it more than double the size of Gozo’s population. Of these, around 30% are children. Future prospects for these refugees remain bleak. Given the drawn out war in Syria, and the pitiful number of resettlement places made available, we can say with some certainly that these refugees will remain warehoused, will limited access to basic human rights and needs.

“We welcome the Prime Minister’s visit to the camp, and we are confident that his interactions with the men, women and children living in Al Za’atari will sensitise him to their desperate need to have their human dignity restored.”