19 people were arrested by police at the closed Detention Centre in ?al Safi last night after a number of migrants staged a protest.

Police officers, accompanied by members of the Rapid Intervention Unit and the Special Intervention Unit, entered the centre and, according to reports, “took control of the situation” before arresting 19 people who were believed to have planned the protest.

The protest kicked off at around 7:30 pm and saw a number of people attempting to approach the gate and even banging on surrounding fences.

No one was injured in the protest, and it has yet to be confirmed what the migrants were protesting about, though there have been more and more protests and demonstrations by migrants there who are demanding their freedom as well as better living conditions in recent months.

In another protest at the ?al Far centre that had shocked parts of the nation, a number of cars were burned as several rooms were ransacked and some officers involved had said they had seriously feared for themselves.

A representative in Malta for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Kahin Ismail, has said that conditions at Malta’s detention centres were not up to standard, noting that unaccompanied minors were being left along with adults unlawfully.

He also noted that Safi detention centre had especially dire living conditions.

Around 3,400 migrants arrived in Malta in 2019, putting extra pressure on Malta’s migrant services.

However, Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia pointed out that though the Maltese government had recently put out an official request for assistance from other countries to relocate some of the migrants in Malta, no state had reached out to help.

What do you think of this latest migrant protest?