Der Spiegel and Lighthouse Report uncover thousands of emails with which the European Border Agency handed over fleeing people to Libyan militias.

The authoritative German weekly Der Spiegel and the international investigative journalism consortium Lighthouse Report have obtained exclusive confirmation that Frontex has sent over 2,200 emails containing the locations of refugee boats to the so-called Libyan coastguard since January 2021.

For MEDITERRANEAN Saving Humans, this is the "damning new evidence that nails the European authorities to their responsibilities". The planes of the European Union's border control agency, as they fly over the central Mediterranean, are sending the coordinates of boats loaded with people in distress, fleeing the hell of Libya, to those militias who - according to countless independent sources - are chasing, ramming, shooting and beating migrants at sea in order to capture them and deport them back to Libya.

According to journalist Steffen Lüdke, in a letter to the European Parliament, Frontex director Hans Leijtens admits for the first time that 'some 2,200 emails were sent from Frontex to the Libyan RCC transmitting coordinates and other relevant information on vessels in distress'. During the same period, Frontex recorded several cases of violence by the so-called Libyan coastguard. Militiamen have repeatedly violently attacked migrants and, as images released by Refugees in Libya show, on 29 November shot at and rammed refugee boats in an attempt to block them at sea and illegally return them to Libya, where they will again be subjected to abuse, torture and extortion.

Frontex's own head of fundamental rights, Jonas Grimhegen, has warned senior management internally of the possible legal consequences for the agency of its cooperation with the so-called Libyan coastguard: "Although the Agency," he writes, "cannot be held responsible for the Place of Safety decision, the sightings directly shared with the Libyan authorities do in fact enable them to locate migrant boats and return them to Libya". And so it goes on in an internal document: "(...) the contribution made through coordination and information sharing could potentially be considered as indirect involvement in refoulement practices, with possible legal consequences and high reputational risks for both Member States and the Agency".

Interestingly, one of the final recommendations of Frontex's Fundamental Rights Officer is that the Agency should instead "enhance cooperation with NGO rescue vessels by alerting them, together with relevant rescue coordination centres, to incidents sighted by the Agency's air assets within the Libyan search and rescue area". Activities that should already be carried out under international maritime law.

For MEDITERRANEAN SAVING HUMANS, it is time to end the collaboration of Frontex (and other European and member state authorities, including Italy) with Libyan militias, because it is a case of complicity with systematic and extremely serious human rights violations; it is time for a European search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean that guarantees the disembarkation of people in danger in safe ports; it is time for humanitarian evacuation channels that, in a legal and safe way, free all the women, men and childrenə still detained in concentration camps in Libya.

Bologna, 12th February 2024