Tareke is an interesting man. Like St Paul, he was washed up in Malta by accident. Arriving unannounced in Malta by boat is generally ill-advised. St Paul somehow got away with it. He enjoyed three months of Maltese hospitality and then continued on his way to Italy. Which is exactly what Tareke would like to do, but it won’t happen. For the last couple of years, Tareke has been experiencing a Maltese hospitality very different from that enjoyed by St Paul.

Tareke came by boat, making landfall on Malta’s south coast on a hot summer night. That was in 2006. Tareke was one of the lucky ones. The boat was fragile, leaking and overcrowded. The hot weather took its toll and two men, a woman and a baby perished from dehydration on the voyage from Libya. Their bodies were cast into the sea. Tareke survived and found himself stumbling by dark across a rocky foreshore onto real land. Happy to be off the boat at last. Pleased to be alive. Pleased to be in Europe.

Tareke lay on the beach, then walked through the Maltese night, eventually reaching a road where he was found at dawn. Since then Tareke’s European experience has been very different from that which he had envisaged when he was back home in Eritrea. A year in detention at an old army barracks and now a hand-to-mouth existence in a refugee camp. "I had never even heard of Malta," says Tareke. "When we landed, I thought this must be Italy. Then, in the morning, I heard the voices of the police. The language seemed almost Arabic, and I feared we hadn’t reached Europe at all. Washed up perhaps back in Libya. That would have been the very worst."

Malta is reluctant host to many thousands of destitute migrants from Africa, none of whom set out from their home countries with Malta in their sights. Each summer brings another wave of arrivals. Many, like Tareke, come from Eritrea. Others come from Ethiopia or Somalia. Yet more from West Africa. For all these refugees, the epic journey from desperate poverty in Africa to a Maltese detention centre is harrowing and dangerous.

Tareke’s unsung arrival on a Maltese beach marked the end of a four year journey, one that took him through northern Sudan and across the Libyan border to a desert oasis at Kufra. Stopping off for months here and there, trying to scrape together enough cash to fund the next stage of the journey, Tareke has seen many fellow travellers falter along the way. "My brother died in the desert," he explains. "We were abandoned by the truck driver, just left to fend for ourselves."

Robbed several times en route, exploited by unscrupulous traffickers who promised onward passage but too often failed to deliver, beaten in a Libyan prison, Tareke eventually reached Tripoli on the north coast of Africa. “I paid a thousand dollars for the sea voyage to Europe. The men who fixed it, they took us to the beach somewhere out of town. They pushed out the boat, pointed the direction in which we should head and told us we would be in Italy within a day. The boat was small. Even at the start it leaked. Enough space perhaps for twenty people. But we were fifty or more. I could see it was dangerous. But I thought it worth the risk. Having travelled so far already, I wasn’t going to turn back. I wanted to get to Europe. Perhaps to be a footballer. Or start my own business and send money home."

THE ISLAND OF MALTA

Malta is a small island. Only half the size of Greater London. Many would argue that it is already overcrowded. But not so overcrowded that endless advertisements in the in-flight magazines on planes bound for Malta cannot offer a clutch of good reasons for relocating to the Mediterranean island. And along the boulevard at Sliema, a popular haunt for tourists, the timeshare touts are always on the lookout for gullible visitors from northern Europe who might be seduced by sunshine and slick talk.

Meanwhile at the southern end of the holiday island, African migrants live in detention centres and tented communities, constantly reminded that there is no space for them in modern Malta. “Everyone just tries to get rid of us,” says Tareke.

Lybster Barracks and Safi Barracks don’t get a word in the tourist brochures. Better not to mention something that may not suit the sunshine image of the holiday island. Modern tourism foregrounds choice. Touch down in Malta on a plane from northern Europe and you are spoilt for choice. “Swim with dolphins,” shout the garish advertisements in the airport arrivals hall, where similar displays extol the merits of spa hotels, boat trips to the Blue Lagoon, posh restaurants and multimedia shows that divide Malta’s complex history into decent sized chunks for tourists.

Away from the glitz of the resorts, the Maltese government does its best to provide reception facilities for the migrants who arrive from Africa. Safi Barracks and Lybster Barracks are both within a stone’s throw of the airport runway where every day plane loads of visitors land. Each compound is surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, but there is a spot on the main road just south of the airport where you can catch a glimpse of the tent encampment at Lybster that is home to some of Malta’s new arrivals.

Yet most visitors to Malta are utterly unaware of the migrant issue. They may see an African face or two as they wander the streets of Valletta, but they don’t see the barracks nor the tent encampments at the south end of the island. They have little inkling of how much the migrant issue dominates local political debate, especially when the warm summer months bring another wave of arrivals. And they never notice the tremendous efforts of volunteer agencies like the Jesuit Refugee Service who provide humanitarian assistance to migrants at their moment of greatest need.

MANOEL ISLAND

Jet into Malta from most European countries and you don’t even need to show your passport nowadays. The airport authorities stopped checking documents for arrivals from Schengen nations in March this year. The islanders described by St Paul as showing “unusual kindness” have their arms open to welcome holidaymakers from northern Europe.

But the truth is that Maltese receptions have always been mixed. St Paul came off lightly. Nineteenth-century travellers often found a sting in the tail of a Maltese welcome. The island’s governors imposed a strict quarantine regime and even travellers with impeccable credentials were forced to endure a spell at the lazaretto on Manoel Island. Over the years, the quarantine compound on Manoel Island numbered some illustrious visitors. Byron, Thackeray and Disraeli were among them.

The Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott arrived in 1831. His considerable reputation demanded some concession, so he was afforded special quarters on Manoel Island, more comfortable than the norm. "It is unpleasant," Scott remarked, "to be thought so very unclean and capable of poisoning a whole city." Scott reported that the island was home to some fearful mosquitoes, thousands of lizards and a fine collection of vermin.

The best thing that can be said about Manoel Island is its super location. Bang in the middle of Marsamxett Harbour, the island affords a great view over to the bastions and ramparts of fortified Valletta. Many were the nineteenth-century artists, not always hugely talented, who whiled away their quarantine days by painting watercolours of Valletta from the lazaretto. Benjamin Disraeli gave a good account of the view in a letter to his father. "As I am not yet allowed to enter the city," he wrote, "but am imprisoned in a vast and solitary building, and shunned by all my fellow-creatures, I can give you no account of it, except that the city of Valletta looks very beautiful from the distance."

Most of these early travellers to Malta had mixed feelings about the island’s detention policy. When the young John Henry Newman (later Cardinal Newman) reached Malta in January 1833 he was detained for a fortnight at the lazaretto, which he judged to be a distinctly eerie and unhealthy place. He was convinced that his quarters on Manoel Island were haunted by spirits. Not content with disturbing his sleep, the demons were evidently unhealthy too. Newman blamed them for his illhealth. "The most wretched cold I ever recollect having," Newman wrote to his mother. "As hard as the stone walls and as tight as the windows."

Nowadays Manoel Island is as eerie as ever. The lazaretto wharf was used by submarines during the Second World War. Since then the old hospital complex has lain abandoned, falling into an ever worse state of disrepair. The island is now linked to the Maltese mainland by a causeway, around which cluster a dozen ramshackle boatyards. The road beyond the causeway onto the island itself is rutted and worn, and a bored security guard sits in the shade of a hut. Say you are bound for the yacht club, which happens to be the only building on the island still in regular use, and he will let you through. Say you want to see the lazaretto, and you will be told, firmly but politely, that Manoel Island is out of bounds.

There are big plans for Manoel Island and for the old quarantine hospital in particular. Malta may not have space for new arrivals from Africa, but those from more affluent places have ample choice. In a few years, that choice will include a new five star hotel with spa complex and casino in the refurbished lazaretto. Perhaps hotel rooms will be named after the various poets, painters and philosophers who, two centuries ago, enjoyed an enforced stay at the lazaretto.

Elsewhere around the two magnificent harbours that straddle the capital Valletta, old forts and wharves are being renovated to provide facilities for tourists. The extraordinary complex of high-rise hotels at Sliema creeps ever further out towards Dragut Point, the white concrete towers mocking the soft hues of ancient Fort St Elmo across the water. The three peninsulas that jut out into the Grand Harbour south of Valletta, collectively known as the Cottonera waterfront, are also attracting developers. Yacht marinas, hotels and apartment blocks are claiming the prime spots. Meanwhile, Tareke, and hundreds more like him, live in tent encampments for refugees on the coast, constantly reminded that there is no space for them on this island.

HELP WHERE IT IS MOST NEEDED

Mahatma Gandhi memorably suggested that a nation’s greatness might be measured by how it treats its weakest members. Europe might look to be judged by its handling of the weak and defenceless migrants who look to us for assistance. In Malta, the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is in the front line. JRS Malta combats xenophobic responses to Africans washed ashore on the Mediterranean island, and offers very practical help to these refugees. JRS Malta has a small staff, most of them working on a volunteer basis; they liaise with medical clinics, social workers and other professionals who attend to the needs of migrants in detention centres and refugee camps.

JRS Malta has won widespread praise for its work, and last year Dr Katrine Camilleri, who leads the JRS Malta legal team, was awarded the Nansen Award by the United Nations. This premier UN award is given for humanitarian endeavours and is widely seen as being equivalent to a Nobel Prize. The Nansen Award, made once each year for over fifty years, is named after Fridtjof Nansen, the celebrated polar traveller who during his later diplomatic career became a passionate advocate of the rights of refugees.

The work of JRS Malta is not uniformly welcomed by the Maltese population, a minority of whom are very intolerant of migrants from Africa. On two occasions, vehicles used by JRS staff have been subject to arson attacks, destroying nine vehicles in all. Last year, arsonists set fire to Dr Camilleri’s car and tried to burn her house — luckily only causing damage to the front door. The incident, she said, had not diminished her desire to help asylum seekers. You can find out more about the work of JRS Malta at www.jrsmalta.org.

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