A spokesperson for the interior ministry in Malta denies that it has received reports of physical abuse of migrants in detention centers, according to a local activist. Meanwhile a row has erupted over claims that migrants have been attempting suicide in order to draw attention to themselves.
In the past year, the number of migrants arriving in Malta has dropped. While that may have eased pressure on the EU 'frontier' state, few are feeling relief. Migrants are being detained for more than a year in "miserable conditions", as a Moroccan held at Safi barracks told InfoMigrants.
Fewer people attempted to enter the EU without authorization in 2020, largely due to coronavirus restrictions, the bloc's border agency said. Syrians were again the largest group of people trying to enter the bloc.
The UN migration agency IOM has helped to relocate 270 migrants from Malta to other European countries this year. More than eight times as many arrived on the island in the past 12 months.
On Friday, the German rescue organization Sea-Eye announced that it would be working with the international NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS). The two NGOs will operate Sea-Eye’s latest boat, Sea-Eye 4, in the central Mediterranean.
Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain say that the new migration pact – as proposed by the European Commission – fails to do enough to systemically redistribute new migrants arriving in the southern EU member states. The four Mediterranean countries expressed their demands in a discussion paper seen by the German news agency dpa.
For migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Libya towards Europe on Tuesday, November 10, it was literally a matter of life and death. News agencies reported that 13 people drowned off the Libyan coast, and on a different boat 88 people were rescued and transferred to the humanitarian rescue ship Open Arms.
Malta's government is facing legal action over alleged rights abuses. Migrants say Maltese authorities left them stranded at sea before ordering their return to Libya in a fishing boat.
The UN-recognized government in Libya has detained a coastguard commander Abdalrahman Al-Milad in connection with human trafficking and migrant smuggling. The UN Security Council previously accused him of intentionally sinking migrant boats.
The European Union looks poised to find broad political agreement on a new EU migration pact. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said that the 27 member states might be able to adopt the new legislation before the end of the year.
The UN Human Rights Office OHCHR has called for urgent action to deal with the horrors faced by migrants trying to cross the central Mediterranean sea and the situations they confront in Libya as well as once they reach Europe.
There have been mixed reactions to the new EU pact on migration. The European Commission sought consensus ahead of the pact in order to pass the policy into law even through countries which had been resisting the idea of mandatory quotas. Many human rights organizations though have slammed the proposals.