Malta refusal to accept migrants: testimonies gathered by MEDU confirm journalist investigations

Rome, 5 June 2020 – International and Italian journalistic investigations have recently exposed the Maltese authorities conduct, which is in open violation of obligations established in international conventions regarding the rescue at sea. These investigations and the subsequent police inquiries, still on-going, focus on the events that took place during the Easter Holidays. Two boats, with migrants on board, would have been diverted by Malta towards the Sicilian coastline while the failure to assist a third boat would have led to the death of twelve migrants. The investigations also found how the remaining 51 survivors were returned to the Libyan prisons in what is referred to as the “Easter Monday Massacre”.

The testimonies gathered by MEDU – Doctors for Human Rights directly from the migrants arrived in Pozzallo on the morning of the 12th of April 2020 validate what is emerging from the investigations and the inquiry. In fact, they confirmed that the boat with 101 migrants left on 9th of April 2020 from an area west of Tripoli, Libya, and after two days they entered the Maltese territorial waters. At the beginning it was a smuggler, who got on board along with the migrants, to drive the rubber boat. After the departure, a smaller rubber dinghy driven by a second smuggler followed the first one and for some hours they sailed together. Afterwards, the first smuggler, using violence and threats, forced one of the migrants to take control of the boat; after he left the boat, he reached the smaller rubber dinghy and then headed towards Libya. Early in the morning of the 11th of April the migrants came into view of the Maltese coastline but another vessel, presumably military, with the letters “AFM” (acronym that stands for Armed Force of Malta), forced them to stop. Some of the migrants got scared and jumped off the boat, thinking that the military would take them back to Libya. They were told that because of the epidemic of coronavirus they were not allowed to continue towards Malta but instead they had to proceed to Italy. The situation remained unchanged throughout the whole day and the migrants remained in the middle of the sea, with the Maltese coastline in sight. Finally, after giving fuel and a new engine, the boat was escorted for a while towards the Sicilian coast. All these operations, including the substitution of the engine and the refueling, were allegedly carried out by men dressed in black, all with the same clothes, who approached the boat with two-three smaller boats that left from the main vessel with the letters “AFM”. The migrants said they also received biscuits and a device to find their way to Italy. The alleged traffickers that drove the boat after the real trafficker had left were identified by the Italian police after landing in Pozzallo. According to the testimonies gathered, people that had never driven a boat before were forced to drive and are now under investigation and they will probably stand trial.

Meanwhile, in the past couple of days, news has come from Malta that judge Joe Mifsud filed the charges against the Maltese Prime Minister and the armed forces in relation to the Easter Monday massacre and the illegal diversion of migrants boats towards Italy.
The issue of rescues in the Central Mediterranean involves also our Country, through the Memorandum Italy – Libya of 2017, and the continued collaboration with a Government which is powerless and an accomplice of the severe and repeated violations of human rights (see also the report THE TORTURE FACTORY released in March 2020).

MEDU firmly asks once again that issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the immigration policies of the European Union member states shall not be an obstacle for the immediate rescue and the offering of a safe port to the boats of migrants who are escaping Libyan prisons and the ongoing civil war.

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