Migrants - what’s going on?

Two days after that, all three are arrested by the National Police when they break into a property. Moreover, one of the three had used violence in seeking to rob a person in the very same area as the break-in.

Within the space of a week, various crimes had been committed by individuals whose status, as the authorities like to put it, is “irregular”. The migratory flow from Algeria, the organisation of this and the motivations for this, are not what interest me here. Rather, it is what happens once migrants arrive and what the same authorities say or don’t say about the handling of these arrivals.

The police have repeatedly been calling for adequate facilities to hold migrants, whose processing - we have been led to understand - involves transfer to the mainland and detention centres. Yet these centres are overstretched. Migrants, we are also therefore told, are placed in the care of “NGOs”.

But what is happening on the island? The case of the three highlights precisely what the police have been demanding but also the vagueness of explanations that emanate from the government delegation. Unequivocal statements are needed. The public has an absolute right to know.