Thread by @alarm_phone

BREAKING: Malta's Dangerous Manoeuvres at Sea exposed!

Witness testimonies and video evidence gathered by #AlarmPhone suggest that the Armed Forces of Malta (@Armed_Forces_MT) endangered the lives of 101 people in distress before facilitating their arrival in Italy. 1/12

On 11 April, 101 people who were fleeing #Libya had Malta in sight when @Armed_Forces_MT intervened & endangered their lives to prevent their arrival in Malta. According to survivors, AFM officers threatened them with guns.

Read our full report! 2/12
alarmphone.org/en/2020/05/20/…

#AlarmPhone had been alerted by the 101 people but lost contact after one call. We had wondered how this overcrowded and unseaworthy rubber boat had been able to navigate about 500km from Zliten, east of Tripoli in Libya, all the way to Pozzallo, south of Sicily in Italy. 3/12

After the 101 survivors came out of the quarantine in Italy, they told us what happened to them during their journey. In the night from 8 to 9 April, they fled from Zliten in Libya and moved north. On 11 April they were close to Malta when they were approached by the AFM. 4/12

The migrants first received life vests but were then prevented from moving to Malta by several AFM vessels. According to survivors, AFM officers threatened them & tried to make them turn around and return to Libya. Several people went overboard & were at risk of drowning. 5/12

Instead of rescuing, the AFM vessels P02, clearly recognisable in the video, endangered the lives of people in the water by driving dangerous manoeuvres. As a survivor told us: "When we got into the water, they were likely to kill us." 6/12

Survivors also report that officers from the @Armed_Forces_MT threatened them with weapons and gave them a rope to climb back into the rubber boat. The officer said: “Malta has a virus … We can't take you there, everyone is sick in Malta.” 7/12

The migrants refused to return to #Libya where they had faced war, torture and detention. When realising they would not turn back, AFM officers resorted to another response – they provided fuel, an engine & GPS coordinates, and told the 101 people to continue to Italy. 8/12

The 101 people continued their journey, exposed to the risk of drowning for another night. According to them, an AFM vessel (the orange vessel) accompanied them in the direction of Sicily before eventually leaving the scene. They reached Pozzallo on 12 April. 9/12

Commenting on their arrival, the mayor of Pozzallo, Ammatuna, speculated: "It is undoubtedly the new strategy of the traffickers." Little did he know that in this case, those who facilitated the arrival of the boat to Italy were, according to survivors, Maltese authorities. 10/12

We ask the Maltese authorities:
-Do you consider manoeuvres driven by AFM vessel P02 a SAR operation?
-Do you consider the people on the rubber boat & those overboard not in distress?
-Do you regularly provide migrants in distress with petrol, engines and GPS positions? 11/12

We ask the European authorities:
Do you allow these violations by @AFM to happen without response? Sabotage, attacking migrants at sea, leaving 12 people to starve and drown, declaring European harbours "unsafe" and preventing entrance to European ports of safety? 12/12