By Judith Crosbie
EU border agency denies claims by Human Rights Watch; Malta also said to have sent migrants back to Libya.
[europeanvoice.com] The EU’s border agency, Frontex, has been involved in a number of controversial operations in which migrants have been sent back to Libya, Human Rights Watch said today.
A report by the monitoring group specifically documents an operation on 18 June that resulted in the Italian coastguard intercepting a boat with 75 migrants just off the Italian island of Lampedusa and handing the migrants over to a Libyan patrol boat.
Human Rights Watch says that the Italian coastguard intercepted the boat with the help of a German helicopter operating under instructions from Frontex.
Frontex has “categorically” denied being involved in what it called “diversion activities to Libya” and said that the German helicopter reportedly involved in the Italian interception was taking part in an unrelated Frontex operation in another area of the Mediterranean.
It added that “in general” the role of helicopters “in operations co-ordinated by the agency is only to patrol the operational area, not to divert”.
The Human Rights Watch report also documents one case in which Malta intercepted a boat of migrants and handed it over to Libya.
Only Italy has previously been accused of adopting a policy of forcible return.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has condemned Italy’s ‘push-back‘ policy and has produced evidence that asylum-seekers eligible for international protection have been among those returned to Libya.
Speaking today in Brussels at a meeting with EU justice ministers, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, reiterated his “strong reservations” about sending migrants back to Libya.
Libya has provided “no space for bona fide asylum-seekers to exist”, he said.
Human Rights Watch’s own report describes the detention centres that Libya is using to house migrants picked up in the Mediterranean as “overcrowded and dirty”, with “inadequate” and “virtually non-existent” health care. In addition, “there is almost no communication with the authorities and it is hopeless even to contemplate challenging one’s detention in court,” it found.
Jacques Barrot, the European commissioner for justice, freedom and security, would not comment on the allegations of Frontex involvement, limiting himself to saying that the EU is working with the UNHCR to resolve asylum issues.
Barrot wrote to Italy in July asking for information on the push-back operations. Italy has three months in which to report.
The Human Rights Watch report quotes Frontex vice-director, Gil Arias-Fernández, as saying that, in statistical terms, the push-back policy has had “a positive impact” because “fewer lives have been put at risk, due to fewer departures”. He is also quoted as saying that Frontex “does not have the ability to confirm if the right to request asylum as well as other human rights are being respected in Libya.”
* At their meeting in Brussels today, EU justice ministers discussed a proposal to set up an EU-wide refugee resettlement scheme which would see vulnerable people who have been recognised as refugees by UNHCR relocated to EU member states. The Swedish minister for migration and current chairman of meetings of EU justice ministers, Tobias Billström, said the proposal would be an “expression of solidarity” to help solve protracted refugees problems around the world. He said some member states had already signalled a willingness to join the programme.
