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For many moons now the AFM, the Police Authorities, charitable Institutions and Organisations, and the Treasury have been shouldering manfully and politically correctly a rather unforeseen, unsuspected, unwanted and increasingly burdensome task of looking after the welfare of these unfortunate, unknown and unwanted gatecrashers.
Since this dismal demographic situation was not nipped in the bud early enough, it promises to stay with us and to be a cause of a heavy headache. Our ‘guests’ present a difficult dilemma for the above mentioned good-intentioned organisations and institutions, and naturally a continuous loss of much-needed funds for the government, already short of cash itself, faced with a national economic shortfall of considerable proportions.
The AFM spotter aircraft and naval patrol boats are sent very frequently, far from our shores to search, find, and tow the flimsy, crowded clandestine boats back to our islands.
The current situation reminds me in some ways of the British Royal Navy’s attempts to stop the Jewish would be immigrants entering Palestine above the official quota permitted to them, just after the WW11, which in the end were given up and the RN patrols were stood down.
One wonders which and where are the brains and the organisations supervising this mass shipments and trafficking of illegal stream of uninvited visitors to our tiny islands. It would appear that some solution to resolve our present problems needs to be decidedly discussed, found and finally acted upon.
Very diffidently and tentatively, mindful of my inexperience I venture to suggest a possibly impossible solution to this sad situation : -
The AFM spotter aircraft and the naval patrol boats could intercept the clandestine boats and escort these sea crafts out and away from our territorial waters; if necessary ensure that their navigation course leads safely back in the direction of the North African littoral from where one can assume these boats originated.
Alternatively the United Nations Organisation should be required to establish screening centres in the North Africa countries for bona-fides and genuinely in need and protection would-be asylum seekers, rather that all the sifting detecting process left to be decided on arrival in this already crowded and densely populated, far from rich, micro Maltese archipelago.
Ethelwald Emilius Vella
Manikata
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