Immigration Crisis

It's not usual for me to write about anything half serious even. Or for a post to be long. But I have a feeling this one is gonna.

Malta. Tiny mediterranean island. A beautiful little safe paradise for those lucky enough to live here. But, we with flaws none the less. One being the government without balls that we have, and another being that our size also means we are overcrowded.

And we are smack bang in the middle of the current exodus that is taking place from Africa to Europe. The people who are arriving illegally on our shores claim that they are running from their war torn country. Except to get here they must go to Libya first. Is not Libya good enough? No. Why? Because the ones who come here are running from a hard life, not war. They are running from poverty or rather unemployment. They are running towards what they think is a paradise on earth, where money grows on trees and jobs are just handed over to you.

Great. What shall OUR unemployed do then?

So, we join the EU. YEY. This should be fun. So far, we've tarmac'ed a few roads and.. erm.. paid fines. They give us (lol @ give - who ever agreed to this is either a complete moron or got a really handsome pay off) a HUGE search and rescue area. And just to give you an idea of how huge this area is, take a look for yourself. You'll either laugh or cry.




Now, lets all put out thinking caps on and see who exactly is benefiting from this huge "net". Hmm.. it wouldn't be the Italians now would it? But they're such a nice bunch of people. They did our Haz Zebbug road!

Now you know exactly how MUCH that road cost us.

What's even more hilarious is that from all that area, only a tiny portion of it is for our fisherman to fish in. So, as someone on my local forum said, we can't take resources from our sea, but we have to pick up all the rubbish in it. As the Maltese says, irrangawna ghal frisk!

So, some days ago, immigrants who's boat drowned, grab onto a tuna pen, which is sort of like a ring in the surface of the sea that keeps a tuna net afloat. The fisherman didn't want to take the 27 people onboard because they were too many and he was afraid they would take his boat over. He notifies Maltese authorities who see that the boat is in Libyan waters, they notify libyan authorities and the libyan authorities do nothing. These people would have been left to drown if it was up to the Libyans. AMAZING. Malta refused to helo because these people were not in her search and rescue zone. So a spanish trawler picked them up.

No doubt, Malta has gotten all the slack for this event. We don't wanna upset uncle Ghaddafi now do we? So, it's ok to slam Malta for not doing something it wasn't supposed to do anyway, as long as we don't shake the hand that holds the oil strings.

Those who had something to say against Malta should first see how many illegal immigrants we ALREADY have, how many have been rescued just this past month and how on earth we are supposed to take any more!

Recent events in the seas around and close to Malta.

May 18: About 28 immigrants drown after their boat capsizes 75 miles south of Malta. A 23-year-old from Ivory Coast survives the ordeal as he is rescued by a Maltese fisherman.

May 21: Twenty-four immigrants rescued by the AFM but they claim one man had gone missing.

May 21: An AFM aircraft spots between 53 and 57 Eritrean immigrants on a boat with a stalled motor and taking in water. They are nowhere to be seen by the time the rescue vessel reaches them. They have not been found since.

May 22: A group of 24, including two women and a girl, arrive on a boat near Birzebbuga.

May 23: Two groups of immigrants land in Malta - 29 North Africans arrive by boat near Benghajsa and 26 are brought ashore later by the AFM after being picked up by an Italian tug boat.

May 23: AFM calls off search for Eritreans lost at sea.

May 25: A boatload with 29 on board arrives at Marsaxlokk, including an 18-month-old child. They are picked up by the AFM about six miles to the south of Malta.

May 25: Following pressure by the UNHCR, the Italian navy commits an aircraft and seven patrol boats to search for the Eritreans. Another 78 immigrants land in Sicily, including 52 in Lampedusa.

May 26: A Spanish trawler (Montfalco) rescues 26 illegal immigrants in Libyan rescue waters. Malta refuses entry on grounds that they were in Libyan rescue waters.

May 26: A group of 25 immigrants are brought into Malta by the AFM while attempts to rescue a number of immigrants in the Libyan search and rescue region are under way. Just a few hours earlier, the army accompanies another group of 29 Somalis, including three children.

May 26: Twenty-seven illegal immigrants are rescued by an Italian vessel after they held on for several hours to a Maltese-owned tuna pen in Libyan rescue waters. The incident sparks international controversy.

May 29: The Spanish government decides to accept the immigrants floating in limbo on board the Montfalco. Spain accuses Malta of acting irresponsibly.

May 31: Tired and disoriented, 25 Somalis are rescued by the AFM after an ordeal at sea when their boat capsizes 80 miles south of Malta. Another group consisting of 27 men and six women, one of whom is pregnant, arrive in Malta late at night.

June 1: A French war vessel stumbles upon a sea of dead bodies. Since the vessel was in Libyan rescue waters, the AFM asks the captain to seek assistance from Libya first. The captain informs the AFM that the ship would be steaming towards France. The bodies arrived there on Sunday.

June 2: Twenty-nine immigrants, including a six-month-old baby, are recovered by the AFM from a drifting boat.


Malta hanina.. wisq hanina.