Although the Maltese Islands never had more than 400,000 native inhabitants, it is estimated that the number of Maltese living around the world is many hundreds of thousands higher. That is because over the past two centuries thousands of Maltese left their homeland in search of a better future elsewhere.

In today's terms, they would have been 'economic migrants' and surely not 'illegal immigrants' because their mass migration from Malta was not just organised but also encouraged, especially in the 1960's when it was a handy solution to Malta's economic problems at its dawn of Independence in 1964. Many of these went to English-speaking countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia.

A century earlier they had just ventured in the Mediterranean and Maltese communities can today be traced in Tunisia, Gibraltar, Libya and Egypt.

When pondering on issues related to the wave of illegal immigrants hitting the Maltese shores, the Maltese people surely know what it feels like to have to leave your mother country in search of a better life far away.

# produced by MaltaMedia News