Malta’s authorities are facing allegations of coordinating a secret fleet of fishing vessels to return asylum seekers to war-torn Libya within an EU Committee.

Spokesperson of Search and Rescue NGO Sea-Eye Julian Pahlke made the claim during his address to an EU LIBE Committee meeting on the migration crisis unfolding in the central Mediterranean where he criticised Malta and Italy for closing its ports to asylum seekers during the COVID-19 crisis.

In the same meeting, MEP Cornelia Ernst has also asked the EU Commission to investigate claims that Malta has a secret agreement with Libya over the migration issue. Neville Gafa has previously claimed to coordinate such an operation, which has been denied by Prime Minister Robert Abela.

While unclear as to what specifically Pahlke was referring to, recent articles on the Times of Malta and Manuel Delia‘s blog have identified a Maltese-owned boat as the vessel that ferried 51 migrants back to Libya.

Mae Yemenja, a vessel owned by Sea Captian Carmelo Grech, was first tasked with distributing supplies to asylum seekers stranded on a dinghy around Maltese territorial waters over Easter weekend. Five are dead, and seven are missing.

The boat then proceeded to take the group of people to Libya, which has declared its ports unsafe over its own civil war and still faces allegations of human rights abuses. 

The Times of Malta has quoted a source as saying the manoeuvre was “a convenient way around the rules”. The Office of the Prime Minister has denied any involvement. Grech has refused to comment. 

While stressing that frontline states were bearing the brunt of the migration crisis, Pahlke called on the EU to intervene and ensure that both Malta and Italy obey search and rescue obligations. 

Referencing previous attacks from the Libyan coast guard on their vessel, Pahlke also said that the EU should remove all funding from the Libyan Coast Guard. 

Throughout the debate, representatives from the EU Commission, Frontex, UNHCR, Council of Europe, and the European Parliament seemed sure that the situation in Libya was only getting worse and insisted that the lack of a proper disembarkation policy is only exacerbating the situation. 

Diplomatic issues in the Mediterranean, representatives said, was not new. Ad-hoc solutions that have defined the migration crisis for the last two years were never replaced with actual policy, and the results are starting to show.

During the same meeting, the Executive Director of Frontex Fabrice Leggeri revealed that Malta has taken in 1,135 asylum seekers since the start of 2020.