Sunday, June 23, 2013

1890 immigrants arrived during 2012 - NSO

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By: di-ve.com news
editorial@di-ve.com


1,890 irregular immigrants on board 27 boats arrived in Malta last year, the National Statistics Office said.

The second highest number of immigrants was mainly due a 19.7% increase in arrivals by boat when compared with last year.

Nearly a third arrived during May. Almost all visitors were of African origin with Somali nationals making up of 65.2 per cent while a quarter were Eritreans.

The Office of the Refugee Commissioner has filed 2,080 new applications for international protection – an increase of 10.0 per cent over the previous year. More than half these applicants were males aged between 18 and 34.

The majority of these applicants, 90.5 per cent, were Africans, of whom 66.3% were Somalis and 23.1 per cent Eritreans while another 9.1 per cent originated from Asia, predominantly from Syria (80.4 per cent).

The Office processed 1,590 applications of which 90.1 per cent were accepted, while the remaining applications were rejected. The largest shares of applicants were of African origin.

An increase of 35.6 per cent was registered in the resident population of Open Centres and other institutional households. The majority, or 75.1 per cent, of the persons residing in Open Centres were residing in Ħal-Far while a further 18.0 per cent were residing in Marsa.

Nearly three-quarters of all residents were males while more than half were Somalis.

Last year, 2,256 persons were found to be present illegally in Malta – an increase of 30.6 per cent over the previous year. The majority, or 91.1 per cent, were Africans, while a further 5.5 per cent were Asians.

Of the persons found to be illegally present in Malta, 568 persons were returned to their country of origin, of whom 71.0 per cent returned to African countries, mainly Libya.

During 2012, 195 persons were refused entry at the Maltese air border. In 27.2 per cent of the cases, these persons were stopped because their purpose and conditions of stay were not justified.

Another 25.6 per cent had no suffi cient means of subsistence and 22.1 per cent had no valid visa or residence permit.

Last year, 420 third-country nationals resettled in another country – an increase of 76 persons over 2011. Another 39 persons benefitted from assisted voluntary return programmes.

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