Malta - Middle East Team

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Comment by David Quin on March 2, 2011 at 8:34pm

Each group relates to those invited to attend the training session, as indicated by the title destination in the name of group. As such the members talk after the session and then move onto the next one.

Comment by Ashraf Gaber on October 15, 2010 at 12:51am

Hello!
I think nobody discuss anything at this group, hope I'm wrong!

Comment by zeinab salam on September 27, 2009 at 11:40am

I welcome dialogue with specialists in economic affairs - from all newspapers in the European Union
- And I want to focus on - how to develop economic relations with the Middle East

Comment by zeinab salam on September 21, 2009 at 1:30pm

I invet on the group for discussion - to develop a mechanism for closer cooperation in the economic relationship between Malta and the Middle East
I am waiting for the ideas in this matter

Comment by Ayman Abdel Nour on November 18, 2008 at 9:28pm

the greece aithairity arrested last week a boat full of syrians trying to enter greece illegaly

Comment by David Quin on November 18, 2008 at 6:44pm

Hamza nice to hear from you. Feel free to post any stories u may have written on the malta page..

Comment by hamza on November 17, 2008 at 10:10pm

hello evrybody,
i'm hamza bahri, i'm journalist free lance and i'm working on immigration since three years that's why i joind your group. i would like to share information on immigration with you.
think you
best rigards

Comment by antoniocastro on November 8, 2008 at 11:54am

Hello,

My name is Antonio Castro and I am the consultant in charge of monitoring this EU project.

I have already met your colleagues involved with the Networking component during a conference in Amman and now I would be very interested in getting in touch with all of you to get your feedback about Malta Training.

Unfortunately, I do not have yet your coordinates.

I would highly appreciate to get by email your phone numbers or skype account.

My email is antoniocastro@rocketmail.com

Looking forward to talking with you.

Best,

Antonio

Comment by David Quin on October 17, 2008 at 3:28pm

Jordan Times

Malta: A trip to the unknown.
By Hani Hazaimeh Joirdan Time

When Beza, a 21-year old Ethiopian, was picked up by the Maltese coast guards some 13 months ago, she thought her terrifying five-days on the Mediterranean in a small boat were over and that she finally made it to Italy.

Beza and her boyfriend, Samuel, were part of a group of 30 African migrants who left their families and loved ones behind, escaping poverty and war in a bid to find new jobs and a better life.

They paid an Ethiopian people-smuggler more than a thousand dollars to get them out of Ethiopia through Sudan and all the way to Libya. Their arduous journey began by with them hiding for six days in a truck carrying goats that was heading to Sudan.

The high prices charged by people-smugglers reflect the growing difficulty, as well as the relative risk and miseries migrants endure during their treacherous journey to the unknown.

“I also paid 1200 euros more to a Libyan smuggler who promised to take us to Italy,” Beza said. But unfortunately, she was caught by the Libyan police where she was imprisoned for two months.

A year later, she managed to raise another 1,000 euros and was determined to try her luck again.

This time she succeeded but the leaking boat she and her boyfriend were in, along with 28 other East African migrants, was picked up by the Maltese coast guards five days after they had left Libyan shores.

At the beginning they were all taken to Malta's largest detention centre. Biza stayed six months before she was transferred to an open centre after she became pregnant.

Every year hundreds of illegal migrants are picked up by the Maltese coast guards vessels. Since the beginning of this year the more than 1,500 migrants arrived to the EU's smallest and most crowded member, 600 more than during the same period last year. In 2007 the number stood at 1,702.

According to the Maltese officials, most of the migrants come from the Horn of Africa, from countries lacking stability and security such as Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Almost every overloaded boat comes from one destination, Libya. Many die onboard before reaching safety.

One of the main challenges facing the Maltese government, besides providing these migrants with adequate shelter and medical care, is identifying their nationalities. Many get rid of their papers and documents before they make it to the Maltese shores in order to slow down repatriation procedures, many others may simply not have any papers to begin with.


"Almost all migrants who are brought by the marine vessels are without any identification, making it even more difficult for us to repatriate them to their homelands," Assistant Commissioner of Police Andrew Seychell said.

Salah Faraj, 34, didn’t have identification papers when he came to Malta from Libya in 2005; he claims that he is a Palestinian.

Although his accent sounds Libyan, Faraj says that he left Palestine in 1984 at the age of 14 years to Egypt.

“The Egyptians did not give me any identifications and I had to go to Libya and stayed there for 17 years,” Faraj said adding that he decided to migrate to Europe after life in Libya became unbearable. This is his third year in Malta and he is still in one of Malta’s five open centres. He was kept in the closed Safi Detention Centre for 18 months before he was released.

Faraj refuses to go back to Libya and is asking the Maltese authorities to send him back to Palestine. But the Maltese authorities say they can’t without the appropriate papers.
Maareq Gazai’s case, a 34-year-old Eritrean, is similar.
A former military serviceman he arrived in Malta in July after a UN vessel picked their may-day call and brought them to Malta.
He spent months in a harsh camp in Libya, suffered a terrifying voyage across the Mediterranean, and feared he would drown in the fishing boat carrying him and 94 others to the EU. Is it worth the risk? The father of four says its is.
“There is no future in my country. We have an endless war fronts with our four neighbouring countries,” he said with a shy smile on his face.
Since he left Libya he did not have any contact with his family. And when he was asked for the reason he turned his face and started crying.
As a soldier serving on the border with Sudan, Gazai did not have to bribe anyone to leave Eritrea. But he paid several hundreds of dollars for the journey from Sudan to Libya and later to Italy.
But he ended up locked in a detention centre in Malta and not knowing what is going to happen next.
“I thought this country was Italy. I don’t want to stay here I want to go to Italy,” he said.
Lt. Col Brian Gatt, commander of Maltese Detention Services said Malta is trying their best to provide humane services to irregular immigrants until such time that they are granted freedom of movement.

Immigrants are kept in closed detention centres upon their arrival for up to 12 months before they receive a response regarding their status.

The Maltese government provides them with accommodation, food, clothing, access to medical care and to the commissioner for refugees. They also help with access to NGOs and means of contacting home or country representative should there be one on island. Conditions inside the closed camps are Spartan, but, says the Maltese government, it’s the best the can do.

Vulnerable cases like lone children, families, Pregnant women or the elderly are quickly released on obtaining medical clearance.

Malta is currently hosting some 2000 illegal migrants per year, each costing around €30 - €40 a day to house. Malta also has the added cost of patrolling a huge area of the Mediterranean, around 250,000 square kilometres.

But although widely recognised as struggling to cope with its immigrant burden Malta hasn’t escaped criticism.

In its 2007 Report, the Amnesty International said conditions in Maltese administrative detention centres failed to meet legally binding international standards. The EU Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs has also not pulled any punches. A delegation of the Committee last year found that the Hal-Safi detention centre "was like a cage", without sheets on the beds, broken and dirty mattresses, and no heating or cooling systems. Hygiene conditions were intolerable, with broken showers, and toilets without doors and in a state of disrepair.
The Maltese government says that they do their best to sustain the hygiene conditions inside the detentions centres but the inmates keep destroying these facilities.
Malta is facing very serious problems and needs all the help it can get from other EU countries to address the issue of illegal immigration, says Minister of Justice and Home Affairs Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici.

"We need practical suggestions and assistance rather than non-constructive criticism."

In July Mufsid Bonnicci signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Medicins Sans Frontier (MSF) to provide illegal migrants during their eighteen-month stay in detention centres with medical care.
Despite the fact that Malta has striven to address this challenge in the best way possible, there is a lot to be done especially when it comes to the integration of those refugees in the local community, he added.
Although the number of refugees coming in boats that are intercepted by the Maltese coats guard seems small, Malta is one of the densest populated countries on earth and has limited resources.
People on the island are getting increasingly worried about being on the EU’s frontline and calls for other EU countries to share the burden of dealing with Malta’s immigration are growing louder by the day.

Comment by hani on October 17, 2008 at 1:09pm

you're the man

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