MIGRATION

The migrants now confined to the Italian coast guard vessel Diciotti had told Malta that they did not require help and that they were advocating their right to free and safe passage, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Thursday morning.

Reacting to a statement made by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Wednesday, wherein he accused Malta of abandoning the migrants when there were clear signs that the vessel was in imminent danger of sinking, Muscat said that this declaration was “unfortunately incorrect” and that Malta had followed all international laws and regulations in handling the case.

Muscat explained that Malta had indeed offered assistance to the migrants, but they had refused the aid offered. As a result, Malta could not intercept the vessel as per international law.

The prime minister explained that he took comfort in the fact that no international institutions had pointed their fingers at Malta in terms of how the country had handled recent migration cases.

He added that while it was not ‘the flavour of the day’ to talk about the boats passing through the Mediterranean, that did not mean that there were none. “It does mean, however, that things are becoming normalised and that there are no particular conflicts.”

The Diciotti case is the latest spat between Malta and Italy over migration, with Italy’s firebrand home affairs minister, Matteo Salvini, accusing Malta of shirking its duties and its transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, urging sanctions against Malta.

The Italian prime minister addressed the Italian senate on Wednesday to give what he called the ‘real’ story about the Diciotti case, claiming that on 15 August, after being contacted by Libyan authorities, Malta had assumed responsibility for the search and rescue operation pertaining to a vessel which, at the time, was located in an area some 50 kilometres south of Malta and 100 kilometres away from the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Conte then accused the Maltese of showing the boat the way towards Italy, escorting them towards the mainland “without being too concerned about them or the condition they were in.” Conte said that the Maltese authorities had “washed their hands of the migrants.”

He said the Italian coast guard then decided to pick up the migrants because there was a very clear possibility that the boat would sink. The decision was based on past experience and worsening meteorological conditions.

“Had we not acted, many of those on the migrant boat would have drowned,” Conte said. The premier added that the morning after, the Diciotti’s helicopter spotted floating life jackets and a patch of fuel oil, suggesting that the migrant’s boat had sunk.

Conti said that the Diciotti affair was not a positive chapter in the history of the EU, which had failed to act on its fundamental principles of solidarity and responsibility. He said that Italy was not prepared to take in migrants in the same way and numbers it used to do.