Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1286060
3 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 9 SEPTEMBER 2020 NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Malta is refusing to allow the disembarkation of the group. Prime Minister Robert Abe- la's hard-line refusal is that the Etienne situation "is not Malta's responsibility" because it ships under a Danish flag and was not in the Maltese SAR area when the rescue happened. "Why should Malta bear the brunt?" he said. The migrants include one child and a pregnant woman, and have now been on board the ship for more than a month. Embetta, from Cameroon, is three months' pregnant. She called out for help in despera- tion. "Help us, please help us. We can't stay like this for too long," she said. "We don't even need to come to Malta if the Maltese don't want us. We just want help, we want to get off this ship." The migrants said they spend their days looking out at sea. One of them says: "I can't even go to sleep, because when I go to sleep all I can think about is my fami- ly. My family don't know where I am. To them I might have been killed in Libya, or I might have drowned during the crossing, they know nothing." He says his parents are dead, but his sister is still in Libya. "I'm desperate. I feel like I'm in jail. Where is this European solidar- ity? We feel like animals." The Maersk Etienne tank- er picked up the migrants on 5 August after being alerted by the migrant rescue charity Sea- Watch of the people in distress. But both Malta and Italy have hardened their positions in the wake of the coronavirus pan- demic and the increasing num- ber of migrant departures from Libya. As MaltaToday approached the tanker at Hurd's Bank, a low- depth area outside Maltese terri- torial waters, the migrants gath- ered near the ship's bow. They are once again the cast in an old play, in which human beings res- cued at sea are refused by Euro- pean states who complain there is no European equity in taking on asylum claims. Humanitarian organisations have called for the 27 migrants to be immediately disembarked. Ship captain Volodymyr Yero- shkin said the migrants were anxious to disembark and get in touch with their loved ones and family. Last Sunday, three mi- grants aboard the vessel jumped overboard in despair. The Chamber of Shipping (ICS), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the Internation- al Organization for Migration (IOM) said Malta's refusal to al- low disembarkation was in con- travention of international law. "The ship's crew have been shar- ing food, water and blankets with those rescued. They are however not trained or able to provide medical assistance to those who need it. A commercial vessel is not a safe environment for these vulnerable people and they must be immediately brought to a safe port," they said. The ICS also called on the Inter- national Maritime Organisation to urgently intervene and "send a clear message that States must ensure that Maritime Search and Rescue incidents are resolved in accordance with the letter and spirit of international law." International law and maritime conventions place clear obliga- tions on ships and coastal States to ensure people in distress are rescued and promptly disem- barked in a place of safety. But the absence of a clear, safe, and predictable disembarkation mechanism for people rescued in the Mediterranean, continues to pose an avoidable risk to life, IOM director General António Vitorino. Amnesty International also accused the Maltese govern- ment of taking take unlawful, and sometimes unprecedented, measures to avoid assisting ref- ugees and migrants. Amnesty said these tactics in- cluded arranging unlawful push- backs to Libya, diverting boats towards Italy rather than rescu- ing people in distress, illegally detaining hundreds of people on ill-equipped ferries in Malta's waters, and signing a new agree- ment with Libya to prevent peo- ple from reaching Malta. "Malta is stooping to ever more despicable and illegal tactics to shirk their responsibilities to people in need. Shamefully, the EU and Italy have normalised cooperation with Libya on bor- der control, but sending peo- ple back to danger in Libya is anything but normal," regional researcher at Amnesty Interna- tional, Elisa De Pieri said. "EU member states must stop assisting in the return of people to a country where they face un- speakable horrors," she said. 'Why should Malta bear the brunt?' - Robert Abela Gasim wrote this message and put it in a plastic bottle, which he dropped over the side of the Maersk Etienne