In the San Guzepp shopping street, just at the entrance of Il-Hamrun, in the east of Malta, the sign, which has a map of Africa, does not look like much. It is 6 pm and the incessant ballet of African migrants does not falter. "Mandela Travel Center" is not one of the many NGOs that serve as a refuge for survivors of the Mediterranean, but a travel agency.

Behind a desk, Ousmane Dicko, the director of the structure, eyes on the screen of his computer, is busy booking flights for his customers, a hair scruffy, in a hurry to find a future departure for Rome, Cagliari or even Stockholm to renew their residence permit. "A large majority comes from Mali, Senegal, Côte-d'Ivoire or Somalia", explains Ousmane Dicko, an Ivorian living in Malta for fifteen years. "And to add:" Italy is the The most requested destination here is that they work in Malta but most often go back and forth between Malta and Italy, where they have been registered, to renew their residence permit or to see friends ".

Ousmane Dicko is delighted to have sniffed this case in 2014. "Initially, it was just a computer center but many migrants came to print their ticket here and they asked for advice," he says. "My wife, who is Maltese, and I took this opportunity, the cultural proximity did the rest."

The agency opened in 2014 accompanies migrants since the booking of their ticket until their boarding. "Little educated, they have trouble booking their own flight online and following the instructions, sometimes they miss their flight because they are lost in the airport lobby," says Ousmane Dicko .

Real estate boom and massive tourism

Adama, a Malian migrant, has to leave for Cagliari where he is registered when he arrives in Europe but the various air tickets offered by the travel agent are beyond his budget. He hesitates but ends up booking a flight. "I have to go to Italy urgently. My residence title expires soon. I have to renew my documents, "says the young, slim, 28-year-old bricklayer at the construction site of a future hotel. "Here, there is work everywhere. If you are looking for it you will find some. But in Italy ... it's much more complicated. "

Outside, the sky of the smallest state of the European Union (316 km2) dominated by hundreds of cranes seems to prove him right. In Malta, in the seaside resorts of San Giljan or St Paul's Bay, high-rise buildings are constantly coming out of the ground to accommodate more and more travelers. A real estate boom driven by the boom in massive tourism and encouraged by the vast modernization policy of the center-left Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. "Every day, new buildings replace old buildings. We break, we build. Everything is new. It looks artificial. At this rate, there will be almost no campaign in Malta, "complains Censina Borg, a 59-year-old Maltese.

In 2018, according to the Maltese Statistical Office, Malta welcomed 2.6 million tourists, for an estimated profit of 2.1 billion euros. A record for the island. For the period from January to May 2019, there were already more than 813 000 to have visited the country.

Consequence: real estate prices are blazing. According to a Knight Frank report, house prices in the archipelago rose 16.9% in the second quarter of 2018 year-on-year. A favorable situation for migrants in search of savings and businesses, happy to find a cheaper labor.

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Adama leaves the agency "Mandela Travel Center". He would have preferred to be in the place of Mohamed *, a 40-year-old Ivorian migrant, who arrived in Malta in 2011. He arrived "by chance", like a large majority of African migrants who can no longer join the Italian shores for various reasons: capsizing boats in the Mediterranean, recovery operations at sea by the Maltese army, smugglers having dropped them on the coast ... "We were 300 to have embarked from Libya in 2011. We left for the Italy but because of a breakdown of the engine of the zodiac, we stopped in the Maltese waters. The Maltese Navy saved us from drowning, "said Mohamed, a taxi driver in his former life in Yamoussokro, the Ivorian capital.

"Arrived by mistake"

"Since 2000, less than 20,000 migrants have passed through the island, compared with 800,000 in Sicily. The island of Lampedusa or Sicily are gateways to Italy and the continent. While Malta is a cul-de-sac. The migrants arrive there by mistake, '' explained to the Cross Nathalie Bernardie-Tahir, geographer at the University of Limoges and co-author of "Mediterranean: Borders adrift", editions Le Passager clandestin. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), no less than 17,000 migrants arrived between 2005-2015 by smugglers on the island of honey that is only 320 km from the Libyan coast .

Mohamed was then detained in the center of Safi Barracks, Malta, for twelve months (the maximum is eighteen months) as are all illegal migrants on the island. "The Maltese authorities say they are materially incapable, both of welcoming foreigners who disembark in successive waves, and of ensuring their possible integration into the territory. Not having the necessary ad hoc structures, they solve the problem by systematic measures of administrative detention of so-called 'illegal' foreigners, ie the vast majority of migrants who arrive in this country, even when they are seeking asylum. 'Asylum,' said Claire Rodier, a lawyer with the Immigrant Information and Support Group (GISTI) for Cultures and Conflicts in 2005.

The systematic use of detention has been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights. And Malta has pretended not to apply it because of the drop in new arrivals between 2015 and 2017. But in the face of the mass return of new migrants in 2018, the Italy of Matteo Salvini and Giuseppe Conte having closed its borders , the archipelago has returned to its old practices.

Hate speech

In May 2012, Mohamed obtained subsidiary protection because of the 2011 post-election crisis in Côte d'Ivoire. He joined the open center of Hal-Far, a former barracks built in 2004. "There, I was free of my movements and I could work," says Mohamed, who first worked as a tiler, before finding a Stable work in a 4-star hotel in Buggiba, where he is an assistant storekeeper. "In Malta, the hardest thing is to leave detention. If you pass this step, you are saved. "

But in April, an event came to disturb the tranquility of migrants. The assassination by two Maltese soldiers of Lassana Cissé, a 42-year-old Ivorian worker who worked in a factory in Birżebbuġa in the south-east of the island. The event caused a stir in the Maltese opinion. "Words of hate and division have no place in our society. This is a strong signal to all those who spread hate speech that their misplaced feelings have serious consequences, "reacted Labor Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, after the arrest of the military in May.

The Maltese Church has in turn mobilized to denounce xenophobia, hatred and the feeling of impunity "which poison many of us, the Maltese". Archbishop Charles Scicluna also organized a concert, half of whose proceeds went to the family of Lassana Cisse, who remained in Côte d'Ivoire.

If for Mohamed, the cases of racism in Malta are well isolated, the massive influx of migrants on this small island has changed the political landscape, with the rise to power of the far right, led by the writer Norman Lowell, who chairs the Imperium Europa political party. In the last European elections, this party won 3.17% of the vote, its highest score. It still remains far behind the traditional parties: the Labor Party of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat (55%) and the nationalist party of Simon Bussutil (38%).

"Immigraton beneficial"

For the Maltese editorial Matthew Vella, a journalist for Malta Today, if the island still resists the extreme right, it is also because despite growing social inequalities, the Maltese economy "continues to grow thanks to the contribution of thousands of foreigners. "This may explain why the immigration concerns in Malta are offset by the awareness that this influx is beneficial to the financial well-being of the people." In 2018, only 14% of asylum requests Migrants to Malta have been rejected, but since the beginning of the year, the archipelago has been holding discussions with other European states to distribute new migrants.

>> Read also: Migrants from the NGO Sea-Eye landed in Malta to be spread across Europe

In April, the ships of the German NGOs Sea Watch and Sea Eye landed more than 60 migrants each, who will be divided between Germany, France, Portugal and Luxembourg. In early July, another ship, the NGO Alan Kurdi of the NGO Sea Eye, also carrying about 60 migrants, docked in the port of Valletta.

Mohamed regrets that these new migrants do not have the chance to stay on the archipelago, where he found "his happiness". "I was going to Italy but Malta was lucky for me, they saved me from death and gave me work, I can only give thanks."

*Alias