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Malta Refuses Even Burying Dead
Bodies Afloat its Shores; Missing
Eritreans
Reportedly Somewhere in Libya
By
Nharnet Stringer (Europe)
At a time
when the story of 18 dead bodies of “illegal immigrants” that were
refused to be accepted by Malta is provoking shock waves and hot
comments in Europe (see story below), Mr. Tesfay Teklezghi, the
ELF-Representative in France, once again received a call on Sunday from
a secret camp in Libya that is reportedly detaining 53 (or 57?)
Eritreans for possible repatriation to Eritrea. The caller this time
provided a telephone number and mentioned the name of the detention camp
to be Zwarah Chabia , located between Tripoli and the city of Zuwarah.
This
information was provided to the North Africa Desk of UNHCR in Geneva.
Mr. Osman Mohamed Ahmed, a senior officer of North Africa and Middle
East Desk confirmed that UNHC officers in Libya have been provided with
this valuable information and will find out where the missing 57 are.
(The-must-read news story below is from The Independent newspaper
of Malta.)
THE INDEPENDENT
(published
June 4, 2007)
Even in Death,
Migrants Were Let Down by Europe
By Peter
Popham in Rome,
The bodies of 21 would-be migrants
picked up from the Mediterranean by a French frigate 120 miles south of
Malta were left to rot on board the ship while Maltese, French and
Libyan authorities argued for hours over where the bodies would be taken
for burial.
The corpses, initially suspected to
have come from a boat crammed with Eritreans that was photographed by a
Maltese surveillance plane 10 days ago before disappearing without
trace, were already in an advanced state of decomposition when La Motte
Picquet plucked them from the sea in the Gulf of Sirte. "They had
clearly been in the sea for several days," said Emmanuel Dinh, a
spokesman for the French Maritime Authority.
But the Maltese, whose tough attitude
towards seaborne immigrants has thrust them into the headlines
repeatedly in the past fortnight, said it was nothing to do with them.
Because the boat sank in Libyan waters, the government said, the
responsibility was Libya's and they would only change their attitude if
the Libyans refused to help. After hours of fruitless discussion between
the three sides, the issue was resolved by the French, who sailed for
France with their tragic cargo.
It is at least the fourth time in two
weeks that the Maltese have refused to do anything for the migrants,
whether alive or dead.
When the boat crammed with 53
Eritreans was photographed by a Maltese monitoring plane, it was only 80
miles south of the island, perhaps three hours' sailing time for the
sort of fast offshore patrol vessels Malta can deploy. When the patrol
boat turned up nearly nine hours later, there was no trace of the
Eritreans.
Days later, the Maltese refused to
accept 27 Africans who spent three days and nights clinging to the
walkway around a tuna pen at sea. They were finally rescued by the
Italians. Another 26 migrants rescued by a Spanish boat were taken to
Spain when Malta adamantly refused to accept them.
The Maltese policy was fiercely
criticised yesterday by Franco Frattini, vice-president of the European
Commission with responsibility for immigration. Malta's refusal to
accept the bodies was, he said "difficult to understand, and must not be
repeated".
Malta's concerns about immigration
were shared, he said, "but solidarity is not just a matter of taking,
one must also give. And the only thing to be done when people are in the
sea is to save human life." He said that Malta's behaviour would be the
subject of sharp questions at the next conference of EU interior
ministers in Luxembourg on 11 June. "No country has ever violated the
accepted practice of saving life at sea in such an overt manner," he
said.
Meanwhile a representative of the
Eritrean Liberation Front claimed that the 53 Eritreans photographed
from the air were in fact carried back to the coast of Libya by currents
- where they were immediately detained by the Libyan authorities. Tesfay
Teklezgh, speaking to the Malta Independent on Sunday, said that he had
spoken both to the Eritreans and the Libyan prison authorities. He added
that it was certain that they would be repatriated to Eritrea, where
"their lives will be at great risk". He said: "There is no peace,
democracy or respect for basic human rights in Eritrea today. There are
only guns and terror against its own people. The world must address
these basic issues, then issues of migration and asylum could also be
solved."
Below is a news
report in French about this horror story about floating bodies of
unidentified “illegal immigrants” refused by Malta even after their
death.
Agence France Report
On 3
June 2007
Arrivée à
Toulon des 18 corps de migrants repêchés entre la Libye et Malte
TOULON (AP) - La frégate
française "La Motte Picquet", avec à son bord les corps de 18 migrants
repêchés vendredi en mer entre la Libye et Malte, est arrivée dimanche
en fin d'après-midi dans le port de Toulon (Var) où le ministre de l'Immigration
Brice Hortefeux a rendu hommage à ces "victimes de l'immigration
clandestine", selon la préfecture maritime de Méditerranée.
La frégate a accosté à 16h45
dans le port militaire où l'attendaient, outre le ministre, le préfet
maritime du Var le vice-amiral d'escadre Jean Tandonnet, le préfet du
Var Pierre Dartout et le procureur de la République de Toulon Pierre
Cazenave, a-t-on appris auprès du capitaine de frégate Emmanuel Dinh,
porte-parole de la préfecture maritime de Méditerranée, à Toulon.
Le procureur Cazenave,
agissant dans le cadre d'une enquête préliminaire pour la recherche des
causes de la mort, va faire procéder à des "examens externes des corps"
et à des prélèvements ADN destinés à permettre aux familles qui se
manifesteraient d'avoir une identification, a précisé le capitaine Dinh.
Puis, les corps seront inhumés "dans la région toulonnaise".
Les 18 corps, dont ceux de
deux adolescents, ont été repêchés vendredi "dans les eaux
internationales à 100 milles nautiques au sud des côtes de Malte"
(environ 200km), soit à une distance équivalente au nord des côtes
libyennes, par la frégate "La Motte Picquet" qui effectuait une mission
de surveillance en Méditerranée, selon le porte-parole.
Les corps -14 hommes et
quatre femmes-, qui avaient probablement séjourné en mer au moins trois
jours, se trouvaient "en état de décomposition avancée" lors de leur
récupération par l'équipage de la frégate. Aucun trace d'embarcation n'a
été repérée sur zone.
Le ministre de l'Immigration,
de l'intégration, de l'identité nationale et du co-développement, Brice
Hortefeux, est venu à Toulon "pour rendre hommage à l'équipage qui a
récupéré avec beaucoup de dignité et d'honneur ces corps", selon des
propos rapportés par le capitaine Dinh.
Le ministre, toujours cité
par le porte-parole, a tenu aussi à "rendre hommage aux disparus,
victimes de l'immigration clandestine" et a transmis à l'équipage de la
frégate un message personnel du président de la République
Nicolas Sarkozy. AP
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