Frontex sent 2,200 messages to Libya to detain migrants at sea despite abuses by its coast guard

The European border agency (Frontex) sent more than 2,200 emails to the Libyan coast guard in the last three years in which it provided them with the coordinates of migrant boats, even though they knew that they are often shot and beaten. by the coast guard.

A joint investigation by the German newspaper

Der Spiegel

and the Lighthouse Reports consortium of journalists has revealed for the first time the extent to which the European agency shares information with the Libyan authorities and its internal knowledge of the abuses faced by migrants after being intercepted and taken back to Libya.

Numerous NGO reports and investigative journalistic reports have documented the violence carried out by the Libyan coast guard against migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from the coasts of North Africa to the European Union, which is one of the most crowded migration routes: in In 2023, 270,180 arrivals were registered, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

A multitude of evidence has also been provided of human rights violations committed inside Libyan detention centers, where migrants are transferred after being intercepted at sea.

Despite the evidence, Frontex has never publicly criticized these practices.

What's more, some European countries such as Italy and Malta have signed collaboration agreements with the Libyan authorities, with training seminars, financing and ships included, by which interception tasks are left in the hands of their coast guard.

The results of this investigation follow the publication of another Lighthouse Reports report last December that revealed how Frontex and the Government of Malta systematically shared the coordinates of refugee boats trying to flee Libya with a boat operated by the militia. Tariq Bin Ziyad.

This group of mercenaries is linked to human trafficking, war crimes and smuggling, and they act under the protection of Khalifa Hafter, the warlord of eastern Libya, who de facto controls

that

territory and with whom Some EU states, including Italy, want to collaborate to stop immigration.

Following this publication, the EU Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) sent a letter to the executive director of Frontex, Hans Leijtens, questioning the collaboration of the European agency with these controversial Libyan actors.

In his response, Leijtens included all Serious Incident Reports (SIR) related to the North African country's coastguard.

The documents reveal several cases of attacks by the coast guard against the migrants on the boats, that is, they demonstrate that they were not isolated cases and that Frontex was always aware of them and recorded them periodically.

In one incident in 2021, for example, a European agency drone recorded a Libyan agent shooting at a wooden boat to force it to stop.

Frontex then sent an email to Tripoli with the following message: “We recommend/suggest NOT to use force during search and rescue operations.”

In three other cases, in 2022, boat passengers were hit with batons while at sea.

In addition, Leijtens' letter recognizes that between 2021 and 2023 Frontex facilitated the Libyan Coast Guard in locating the ships in which migrants were traveling clandestinely about 2,200 times, mainly by email, knowing of the attacks that the agents usually do. perpetrate.

Without the help of the European agency, which mainly carries out aerial surveillance work in the Mediterranean, the Libyans would hardly be able to find the clandestine vessels that ply that sea.

Thus, Frontex sends the coordinates to all maritime rescue centers in the region, including Tripoli.

This, in turn, alerts its coast guard, including the Tariq Ben Ziyad militia.

When asked about these emails, an agency spokesperson said the decision to share information about ships in distress with Libya “is made with great regret.”

The serious incident reports also include recommendations from the head of Frontex's human rights office, Jonas Grimheden.

Among them, it is advisable to involve the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the IOM in monitoring the fate of people returned to Libya.

Also increase the exchange of coordinates with NGO rescue ships and urge Member States to be more active in rescue operations.

Frontex has not clarified whether it plans to follow these instructions.

Grimheden also mentions that asylum seekers cannot be taken to Libya because it is not a safe country, something that the European Court of Human Rights already said in 2012, but that has not been taken into account until now.

According to the UN, between 2019 and 2021 alone some 35,000 migrants were intercepted and taken back to Libya.

The Mediterranean continues to be the largest maritime cemetery in the world: 2,797 people remained under its waters in 2023, 72% of those missing this year, and more than 28,000 of the victims registered in the last decade.

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