Countries must take urgent action to disembark more than 400 migrants who are currently being held on boats off the coast of Malta after the island nation closed its ports due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, Council of Europe (COE) Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic said Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th June, 2020) Countries must take urgent action to disembark more than 400 migrants who are currently being held on boats off the coast of Malta after the island nation closed its ports due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, Council of Europe (COE) Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic said Thursday.
"The situation of more than 400 persons kept on private ships just outside Malta's territorial waters is unsustainable and requires immediate action," Mijatovic said in a press release.
The Maltese government closed the country's ports in April as part of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, and Valletta has said that other countries in the European Union must share the responsibility of housing migrants that have been rescued in the Mediterranean Sea.
According to the COE commissioner, EU member states must take rapid action to decide on a policy that will allow migrants to be brought onshore safely.
"Discussions about a fair and equitable system for responsibility sharing have been continuing for too long. Once again, I call on member states to promptly decide on such a system in a true spirit of solidarity. However, I do not believe that keeping survivors at sea, as is happening now, is the right way to make much-needed changes happen," Mijatovic stated.
According to the Times of Malta newspaper, the Maltese government has chartered four tourist boats to hold as many as 425 migrants offshore as the country's ports remain closed.
Maltese politicians have raised concerns within the European Union that the country is bearing the brunt of a wave of migrant arrivals from North Africa in recent months.
