The UN and several NGOs have launched a joint attack on Malta for refusing to take in more refugees, although the country had made it clear that it was completely full.

Malta became the target of an all-round attack after it declared that it was not willing to admit more migrants, saying the island was full and had no spare capacity to deal with new illegal arrivals besides the pandemic. When EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell mentioned Operation Irini, designed to provide EU oversight of the Mediterranean, Malta said it would persistently veto the initiative. Operation Irini is the potential successor of Operation Sophia which brought fifty thousand migrants to Europe, despite the original plans to curb the wave of migrants indirectly.

Malta already announced that it would do its best to ward off the new waves of illegal migrants, who play on reaching the country s territorial waters to be able to claim asylum. However, Malta s efforts have failed, as a number of organisations are working hard to thwart the country s plans. The first dramatic case, highlighted by the Guardian, was when the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) turned away a small rubber boat carrying 101 migrants.

Malta said it was unable to receive them, citing the coronavirus pandemic and arguing that „everyone is sick in Malta,” which happens to be a small country anyway. AFM then supplied the migrants with fuel, life vests and the GPS coordinates to reach Italy. Afterwards, they pointed guns at the passengers of the boat and said they had 30 minutes to leave the Maltese waters.

The migrants immediately contacted the Alarm Phone NGO, which also published the story to „expose Malta s dangerous maneuvers at sea,” endangering the lives of the migrants. The video shows some people swimming in the water in life vests. The video is being recorded from a rubber boat and a Coast Guard vessel is also visible in the background. No one, including Alarm Phone, has provided any explanation as to why the migrants had jumped into the water during the recording, but all reports seem to confirm that the boat they used to reach Malta also ferried them to Sicily, accompanied by AFM along the route.

However, there s more to the story, as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have jointly called on the EU and Malta, in particular, to admit Captain Morgan ships carrying 160 migrants in the Mediterranean. The country continues to argue that the island is under lockdown due to the epidemic. Their reasoning, however, has failed to strike a chord with the organisations which declared that the states – in line with their obligations prescribed by international law – must continue to disembark people rescued at sea, and „ensure their access to asylum and humanitarian assistance.” 

The Human Rights Watch NGO immediately joined the initiative, saying „it s incredible that the Maltese government would hold these people captive on tourist ferries in miserable conditions for weeks.”

Their call also focused on the need for the EU to act in solidarity and to establish a distribution mechanism, which still hasn t happened. The EU has made several attempts, but so far it has only been able to reach a few ad-hoc agreements on the admission of a small number of migrants, while the rest will continue to be cared for by Malta.

The Maltese government has already stressed that the country saw the arrival of more illegal migrants in the last few months than during the whole of last year, adding that they have information about 650,000 people who are still waiting at the Libyan coast to set off for Europe. The government added that Malta will not take in more refugees because the country is completely full, adding that it will continue to veto any measures designed to support the admission process.