WATCH: Malta’s Foreign Minister Says Migrant Rescue NGOs Must Be ‘Part Of The Solution’
Migrant rescue NGOs must be “part of the solution” to solve the problem of migration across the Mediterranean, Malta’s Foreign Affairs Minister Evarist Bartolo has said.
“NGO ships have an important humanitarian role to play and we must see how to work with them,” Bartolo said when interviewed on Lovin Malta’s show #CovidCalls. “However, to come to the Mediterranean now [when ports are closed due to the COVID-19 crisis] is highly irresponsible. There has to be a working relationship between us and they have to be regulated. I’d like to see them as part of the solution.”
Bartolo’s most recent statement on migrant rescue NGOs is decidedly more conciliatory than his recent comment – which insinuated that they are assisting and urging human traffickers – and Prime Minister Robert Abela’s remarks which cast doubt on their genuineness.
Today, the Minister said that while the presence of NGO vessels in the Mediterranean acts as a pull factor for migrants seeking to cross from Africa to Europe, this doesn’t mean all human trafficking is taking place because of these ships.
With Malta, Italy and Spain closing their ports in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bartolo said German migrant rescue NGOs currently operating in the Mediterranean should take all the migrants they pick up at sea to Hamburg.
However, he said they should ultimately be part of the solution, with the migration situation at sea, exacerbated by the civil war in Libya, expected to last beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
What do you make of Bartolo’s comments?
Cover photo: Left: Evarist Bartolo, Right: The Sea-Watch rescue vessel (Photo: Fabian Melber/Sea-Watch.org)
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