A Council of Europe report recently laid bare the inhumane conditions in the centres, where migrants were unlawfully held and “forgotten for months”, and COVID-19 patients were left to mingle with other detainees.
The rise in admissions should not come as news given the mishandling of the pandemic in detention centres, aggravating the already terrible conditions, human rights NGO aditus said when contacted.
Aditus director Neil Falzon said that in light of those gruesome conditions, he was not surprised that the pressures caused by the pandemic had spurred a rise in mental health problems among detainees.
“While we were all sanitising, keeping socially distant and following daily news updates, detained people were rubbing shoulders with persons testing positive and had no way of protecting themselves,” he said.
El Hiblu 3: Witness says captain calmed them down and said he would bring them to Malta
Witness aboard tanker that rescued 100 asylum seekers testifies in court on terrorism charges filed against three teenagers accused of commandeering the ship
4 March 2021, 2:57pm
by Matthew Agius
A witness has told a court of the confusion amongst the rescued migrants on board the El Hiblu tanker, when found they were being returned to Libya.
Fatima Bari took the witness stand against three youths, two from Guinea and one from the Ivory Coast, aged 15, 16 and 19, who stand charged with terrorism-related offences for unlawfully seizing control of the ship. The accused face prison sentences of up to 30 years in duration if found guilty.
Image: Hokyoung Kim for NPR
Stuck on a stalled motorized inflatable raft in the open sea, 15-year-old Tsedal began to panic.
She and the other passengers, more than 60 migrants from the African countries of Eritrea and Sudan, had set off from neighboring Libya, where their lives had become unbearable. They were trying to cross more than 100 miles of the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe.
Repeated distress calls brought no help. The passengers were suffering from dehydration and sunstroke. Two babies on board cried with such anguish that Tsedal could feel their wails deep in her chest. Everyone kept screaming, We are all going to die! says Tsedal, an Eritrean whose last name NPR is withholding because she s a minor whose life is often in danger. The raft seemed to be sinking. We believed we would disappear with it under the water.
Image: Hokyoung Kim for NPR
Stuck on a stalled motorized inflatable raft in the open sea, 15-year-old Tsedal began to panic.
She and the other passengers, more than 60 migrants from the African countries of Eritrea and Sudan, had set off from neighboring Libya, where their lives had become unbearable. They were trying to cross more than 100 miles of the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe.
Repeated distress calls brought no help. The passengers were suffering from dehydration and sunstroke. Two babies on board cried with such anguish that Tsedal could feel their wails deep in her chest. Everyone kept screaming, We are all going to die! says Tsedal, an Eritrean whose last name NPR is withholding because she s a minor whose life is often in danger. The raft seemed to be sinking. We believed we would disappear with it under the water.
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