Watch: People with disabilities ‘imprisoned’ in their flats for over a month

Watch: People with disabilities ‘imprisoned’ in their flats for over a month
By Hot Malta Correspondent

A grainy video circulating on Maltese social media this week shows a wheelchair user banging on a locked lift door in a Buġibba block while his neighbour, a blind woman, tries to calm him from the stairwell above. For 37 days, residents of the Sea-Spray apartments say they have been trapped on their floors because the building’s only lift has been out of order. In a country where almost one in eight citizens lives with a disability, the footage has ignited a debate about how Malta’s rapid vertical expansion is leaving its most vulnerable behind.

The block, built in 1985 and retro-fitted with a lift in 2007, is typical of many seaside towns that mushroomed in the tourism boom of the 1990s. Its narrow corridors and single lift shaft were never designed for 24 flats spread across six levels. Yet the same blueprint repeats from St Paul’s Bay to Marsascala, and the Sea-Spray failure is now a cautionary tale for the 500-plus high-rise permits issued since 2015.

“People keep talking about the skyline, but nobody talks about the stairwell,” says Etienne Bonello, 34, a wheelchair user who has not left his third-floor studio since 28 March. “I missed my nephew’s communion, I missed Easter lunch with my nanna, and I’m running low on catheters. I feel like I’m under arrest.”

The owners’ association claims it has been waiting for a replacement circuit board from Italy since February, held up by global supply-chain delays. They pooled €4,000 to hire a temporary stair-climber, but the device broke after two days on the steep marble steps. Meanwhile, residents have relied on neighbours to carry groceries, medication, even a portable oxygen concentrator, up several flights.

Local priest Fr Joe Borg, who has been delivering groceries and sacraments to the block every Friday, says the crisis exposes “a cultural blind spot”. “We Maltese pride ourselves on *qima fil-qalb*—respect for the elderly and the sick—but when we build towers without back-up lifts or ramps, that respect stays on paper,” he told Hot Malta.

The video, posted by volunteer group #LiftMalta, has been viewed 190,000 times in 48 hours—more than Malta’s entire registered disabled population. Comments range from outrage to resignation: “Same in Sliema, same in Gżira,” wrote one user. “We’re becoming Dubai without the budget,” quipped another.

Disability Rights Malta has now filed a formal complaint with the National Commission for Persons with Disability (KNPD). Commissioner Oliver Scicluna says the law is clear: “Building regulations require multi-storey dwellings to provide adequate vertical circulation. If a single lift is the only means, it must be maintained to an uninterrupted standard.” Penalties can reach €3,000 per day, but enforcement is rare and slow.

Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo, whose constituency includes Buġibba, visited the site on Wednesday and promised “urgent coordination” with the Building and Construction Agency. Yet for residents like 68-year-old Maria Pace, who lost her sight to diabetes last year, words are hollow. “I used to walk to the *pasticceria* every morning for *ħobż biż-żejt*,” she says, gripping her white cane. “Now my world is the length of this corridor.”

The stand-off has sparked wider questions about Malta’s social contract. In the past decade, EU funds helped install hundreds of curb cuts and beach pathways, but vertical mobility remains a private responsibility. Architect David Xuereb, former president of the Kamra tal-Periti, argues that post-2010 blocks should be legally obliged to include two lifts or a generator-backed system. “We can’t keep pretending Malta is still a village of two-storey houses,” he says.

This evening, a spontaneous *kafè solidarjetà*—coffee and *mqaret*—is planned outside the Sea-Spray block. Volunteers from the Malta Red Cross Youth will stream it live on TikTok, hoping to crowdfund a temporary outdoor stair-lift within 48 hours. Whether the machinery arrives or not, the image of neighbours passing groceries like a human chain up six flights has already become a symbol of both community resilience and systemic failure.

As the sun sets over Buġibba bay, Etienne Bonello scrolls through messages of support on his phone. “The sea is right there,” he says, gesturing toward his window. “I can smell the salt, but I can’t reach it. In Malta 2024, that’s not just a mechanical problem—it’s a moral one.”