By MaltaMedia News
The French news agency also produced photos of the living conditions at the Marsa Open Centre and the tents in the Hal Far Open Centre for illegal immigrants.
AFP said since 2002, more than 7,000 boat people have arrived here unintentionally because of shipwrecks or engine failure, only to confront an immigration policy considered among the harshest in the European Union.
Boat people can be held in camps for up to 18 months under a policy that Paul Pace, a Catholic priest who runs Jesuit Refugee Service near
The charity is allowed to enter the closed camps that have processed about 1,800 boat people a year since 2002.
A report this month by Medecins du Monde slammed the "deplorable" conditions at the overcrowded camps, warning of health risks for the inmates.
Terry Gosdem of the Catholic charity Suret il-Bniedem (In Man's Image), which runs the Marsa centre on a shoestring, praised the French charity's report.
"They've done a good job to protect the basic rights of asylum seekers. These people are survivors, and we have to give them the ability to recover from their voyage and the mental attitude of being in detention."
The Maltese interior ministry declined to comment on the report when requested by AFP.
Only six percent of boat people who arrive on
Another 43 percent win the right to humanitarian protection because of civil strife or war in their home countries.
The rest are to be repatriated, but
Apart from 19 Nigerians who were sent home this year with help from the EU, the others have been transferred to open centres where they can either try to integrate into Maltese society or find a clandestine route to
"Making 'Fortress Europe' will not solve the problem," Pace told AFP. "People will take more risks. That's the experience we have."