‘Terrorist’ Migrant Teens Charged With Malta Boat Hijack Tell Their Side Of The Story
It was a case that shocked the nation, a rare case of terrorism in an island shielded from the horrors of neighbouring countries. A large group of migrants crossing the Mediterranean were picked up by a Turkish tanker but three teenagers allegedly took control of the ship after realising it was sailing to Libya and forced the captain to take them to Malta instead.
However, human rights NGO Amnesty International has now spoken to the migrants, as well as to their lawyers and the Maltese authorities and has warned that things are not as they seem.
Amnesty said that the youths, aged 15, 16 and 19, two from Guinea and one from the Ivory Coast, were part of a group of 105 migrants who fled Libya and were picked up by El Hiblu 1, a Turkish vessel which was travelling from Istanbul to Tripoli last March.
The migrants said the captain promised to take them to a meeting point where two European boats would pick them up, but the EU’s naval force allegedly instructed the Turkish vessel to take them to Libya instead.
When the migrants realised what was happening, they started panicking, warning the crew that they would rather jump into the sea than get picked up by the Libyan Coast Guard.
“People started crying and shouting because they were afraid to go back, and some had children,” one of the youths told Amnesty. “They shouted: ‘We don’t want to go to Libya’, ‘We prefer to die’, because if they take you back to Libya they put you in a room, they torture you, you eat only once per day. When they take women to prison, the Libyans choose the ones they like and take them by force. And some people put you in the private prison and call your family and ask to bring money to give freedom.”
The captain then asked one of the youths, who could speak English, what he could do and the youth responded that he mustn’t send them back to Libya. The youth said that the captan then agreed to take them to Valletta, the closest European port, and when he asked what Valletta was, the captain teased him that he wanted to reach Europe but didn’t know Valletta was a European capital.
According to the youths, they didn’t threaten the captain or crew or use any sort of violence. Indeed, they said the atmosphere inside the cabin was relaxed and that the crew had occasionally even brought coffee and peanuts for them.
Soldiers from the Malta Armed Forces board the El Hiblu 1 vessel
However, when the El Hiblu 1 arrived in Malta, it told the Maltese authorities that the migrants had taken control of the vessel and forced it to sail into Maltese waters.
Following the publication of Amnesty’s report, a group of Maltese NGOs, including Moviment Graffitti, the Malta Gay Rights Movement and JRS Malta, urged the police to drop its charges of terrorism against the young migrants and transfer them to an open centre.
“As a group of NGOs and stakeholders, we call on them to withdraw these charges and release these three young persons, whose only role aboard the El Hiblu I vessel was that of translators and mediators,” the NGOs said. “They acted in this manner to save their own lives and that of other migrants aboard the vessel which arrived in Malta on the 28th of March of this year.”
They argued that the migrants had every right to protest their return to Libya, noting that international maritime law prohibits the forced return of migrants to places where they can be persecuted. There have been several horrific reports of what goes on inside Libyan detention centres, with migrants subjected to rape, exploitation, starvation, trafficking and even murder.
“These three young migrants have saved the lives of 105 abused men, women and children,” the NGOs said. “The Maltese authorities are accusing them of acts of terrorism and terrorist activities, an offence which carries a potential life sentence, instead of acknowledging this as a legitimate and desperate act of defence.”
What do you make of this story?
READ NEXT: WATCH: El Hiblu Hijack: UN Calls On Malta To Drop ‘Exaggerated’ Terrorism Charges Against Teenage Migrants
