Saved from the sea - Stuck in limbo

On today's Guardian, Duncan Campbell discusses Malta's immigration controversy and writes that new arrivals are polarising Maltese public opinion and presenting "a moral and political dilemma for EU". From the Guardian:

From behind the barbed-wire fence that surrounds the detention camp, Bush - "yes, like George W" - Faoud describes how he came by the wounds on his neck and arm. "I was stopped by two criminal soldiers in Darfur," he says. "I was shot in the arm and in the leg and my neck was broken. I ran away."..

Bush Faoud is part of a fast-growing influx that has polarised opinion on Malta and presented the EU with a moral and political dilemma. As conflicts continue in Africa and the profitable trade in human trafficking soars, tens of thousands of people are prepared to risk their lives in perilous crossings of the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea to seek a new life in Europe. Libyan traffickers sell them frail open craft with room for around 30 people and tell them the journey to Italy is easy. Many drown.

Malta joined the EU only last year. As a member state it is obliged to deal with the asylum applications of the new arrivals, none of whom want to stay in Malta but all of whom are detained while their applications are processed. Malta received 116 asylum cases in 2001 but by last year that had multiplied to 1,227. In the past week alone a further 300 people arrived, rescued by the Maltese armed forces from a watery death. Many fail to gain refugee status so they hover in limbo, unable to return to their countries, unwanted by tiny, overcrowded Malta and by mainland European governments unsympathetic to African immigrants...

Malta presents requests to deal with illegal immigration; ANR protesters clash with Graffitti members

More from the Washington Times: Flood of refugees strains island nation - by Roland Flamini, United Press International