With figures showing a fourfold increase in Somali migrants since 2006, Labour MP Michael Falzon claims they are deliberately choosing Malta as their destination. But a more plausible reason for their exodus is the desperate situation of their stateless nation, JAMES DEBONO says

What would you do if you lived in a country which lacked a government for 17 years, and which for the past two years has been mired in a civil war pitting Islamists against a foreign invader? Given the chance and the money, you would probably run away.
Back in 2006, only 311 migrants in Malta hailed from Somalia. By last year, the figure had doubled to 613. Now it has risen to 1,266 – more than a fourfold increase over three years.
Somalis now account for nearly half the number of migrants arriving in Malta. And of the 3,221 Somalis to arrive in Malta since 2002, 1,666 still live in Malta where they automatically qualify for humanitarian protection after a short period of detention.
Clearly, immigration figures have shot up after neighbouring Ethiopia invaded the country to oust an Islamic government from Mogadishu in December 2006.
Since then, the stateless country has reverted to chaos. But speaking on Bondiplus, Labour’s spokesperson for immigration Michael Falzon gave another reason why the number of Somali immigrants in Malta has increased.
He claimed that unlike migrants from other African countries, Somalis were intentionally choosing Malta as their destination.
Most of the migrants do not actually arrive in Malta on their own steam, but are rescued by the army when asking for assistance in Maltese waters.
Contacted by MaltaToday Falzon could not back his claim with evidence.
“If I had any such evidence I would go straight to the Police Commissioner. But the patterns of how these migrants are always arriving on boats of 28 people is very clear... there is a pattern.”
Falzon also pointed out that Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici did not even dispute his claim during the programme.
“It is clear that most immigration of Somali people is being organised in Libya from the moment they cross the desert. They do not arrive from Tunisia which is nearer to Malta, but from Libya.”
When reminded that immigration from Somalia could be on the increase because a war is raging there, Falzon said that although the war is surely a factor, smugglers could also be deliberately transporting Somali people to Malta from Libya.
But the United Nation’s High Commission of Refugees has no indication that Somali migrants are deliberately choosing Malta as a destination.
“On a very general basis, immigrants do not choose Malta as there destination except in a few cases where migrants already have members of their family here,” UNHCR liaison officer Neil Falzon said.
Falzon also made a sharp distinction between the intentions of migrants and the motives of those who run the smuggling business.
He points out that arrangements such as the number of persons in each boat are made by the smugglers, not by migrants who have no say in these matters.
And while the smugglers could have an indication where the boat is heading depending on the port of departure and wind directions, the UNHCR’s liaison officer notes that “smugglers only care about the money and do not even care if the immigrants arrive alive, let alone where they arrive.”
Falzon also said that the UNHCR is being very careful not to attract migrants from Somalia through the resettlement programme of Somali asylum seekers in the United States of America.
In 2008, 15 Somali nationals living in Malta were resettled in the USA.
“So far our feedback is that this programme is not a pull factor for migrants, because the high risk of death while crossing the desert or the sea offsets the very small chance of being chosen for resettlement.”

Italy gets more Somalis
Malta is not the only country experiencing an increase in Somali immigrants arriving from Libya.
In August Italian home affairs Minister Roberto Maroni confirmed that 99% of the 12,000 immigrants arriving in Lampedusa hailed from Libya. As in Malta, the majority of these migrants also originated from Somalia and Eritrea.
According to data released by the Italian Home Affairs Ministry, immigrant arrivals in Sicily have increased threefold in the first six months of 2008.
A sharp decrease in illegal immigrants from northern Africa has been compensated by a sharp increase in the number of arrivals from the Horn of Africa.
In the first six months of 2008, Sicily saw the numbers of Somali arrivals explode by 187% from 892 in 2007 to 2,556.
Like Malta, Italy has seen a sharp drop in the number of Eritreans. Back in 2005, 6,000 Eritreans had reached Sicily. In the first half of 2008, the number dropped to 200.
In Malta, the number of Eritrean migrants has fallen from 372 in 2005 to just 98 in 2008. The decrease in Eritreans is attributed to the harsh treatment they have received in Libya and Egypt, where thousands still languish in prison while others were repatriated amidst concern about their safety.

A failed state
The situation in Somalia is desperate. Deprived of a functioning government for the past 17 years, the country has seen an escalation of violence after the US-backed Ethiopian invasion to remove the Islamic courts from power.
After a decade of warfare between rival warlords, the Islamic Courts had restored order in the capital by imposing a strict version of Shar’ia law. Murder and drug trafficking were punished by public executions.
This prompted international concern that Somalia was being turned into a Taliban-style regime, where western music, culture and even football matches are banned.
But many Somalis, fed up with the warlords and eager for stability after decades of turbulence, welcomed the Islamic militants.
The Islamic Courts were also blacklisted by the United States for their presumed Al Qaeda connections. Two leading warlords were assisted by US forces to escape from Somalia.
Faced by a full-scale Ethiopian invasion, the Islamists simply melted away in the same way as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein loyalists in Iraq, to start a prolonged guerrilla war.
Hundreds of thousands are now leaving the country either across the Gulf of Aden towards Yemen, or across the Sahara desert into Libya and subsequently Malta and Italy.
Somali immigrants heading to Libyan have to cross the war-torn Sudan, where they risk being attacked by armed militias who have laid checkpoints between the two African countries.

jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt

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