The Board of Visitors for Detained Persons
Annual Report for 01 January- 31 December 2014
Composition of the Board
The Board of Visitors for Detained Persons was constituted in terms of Legal Notice 266
of 2007, published under the Immigration Act (Chapter 217 of the Laws of Malta). The
the Board was made up ofthe following members:
Chairperson
Ms Mary Anne Agius
Members
Mr Joseph Borg
Ms Susan Mulvaney
Member-Secretary
Mr Charles Micallef
Two members who resigned for personal reasons in 2012 and a member
who was asked to resign in March 2014 have not yet been replaced.
Number of Detainees
The Year 2014 stmted with 356 undocumented immigrants in detention. By the end of
December 2014 the number was 30. However, these numbers do not necessarily reflect
the number of undocumented immigrants who were detained during the Year. During
the year 2014, 6 boat carrrying 568 migrants came to Malta. This is a considerable
change from 2013 when 24 boats came to Malta carrying 2008 undocumented
immigrants. The majority was released shortly soon after its arrival in Malta having
been granted humantiarian protection and following their successful request for
humanitarian protection status.
These immigrants came mainly from 14 countries as shown in Table 1.
(This information, extracted from the police data, regards all boat arrivals and not just
those who applied for asylum. Consequently not all nationalities have been listed
according to the categories recognized by the EU. Thus the immigrants who have been
listed under a category which does not fall under EU categorization have been
marked by the database as <specify> The category marked 'specify' consists mainly of
undocumented migrants from Syria, Palestine and Lebanon).
1