European patrols against illegal immigration

Faced with a surge of illegal immigrants, several countries appealed for European solidarity during a meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels on Monday, July 24. "We are recovering lifeless bodies like dead fish from polluted rivers. Can we just stand by and watch all these people dying on Europe's doorstep without doing anything ?" admonished Tonio Borg, Malta's interior minister, in remarks reported by the Belgian daily. "Malta is second in the world in terms of the numbers of refugees per resident. Patrols will be set up off the coasts of Malta and the Canary Islands. These patrols may fail, but we have to try. If we leave it to countries to get by on their own, the situation will backfire in our face some day. It must be said that many countries seem insensitive to this problem."

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