Amnesty demands criminal investigation into Malta’s treatement of refugees
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International NGO Amnesty International has called for a criminal investigation into Malta’s treatment of migrants and refugees.
“Malta seems to have really escalated the level of unlawfulness,” said Elisa De Pieri, regional researcher at Amnesty International told the EU Observer.
While Government has been accused of supporting pushbacks to Libya, Malta has rescued over 2,000 migrants in the past six months.
De Pieri said that there is a major lack of accountability in Malta, and referred to the Easter case where 51 people, including seven women and three children were sent back to Libya on a fishing boat.
Five people were found dead by the time it arrived in Libya and survivors say another seven went missing. That incident sparked a magistrate inquiry in Malta – but Amnesty contends that this investigation has failed to deliver any meaningful results.
“For us the main problem is that there needs to be accountability, there needs an investigation that is independent and impartial, a criminal investigation,” she said.
“This investigation needs to happen and it needs to happen not just for the push-backs, but also for the detention of about 425 people at sea that we saw in May and June,” said De Pieri.
Amnesty International also said that Malta’s “unlawful practices” were a result of policies taken at EU level which were priotising the reduction of migrant arrivals.
