r/EuropeanFederalists • u/EUobs • 8d ago

EU agency Frontex told Libyans where to find migrant boat with children, then watched them run it over

https://euobserver.com/241745/eu-agency-frontex-told-libyans-where-to-find-migrant-boat-with-children-then-watched-them-run-it-over/

Frontex knew where the migrant boat was. So did the Libyan coastguard. What happened next raises serious questions about EU responsibility.

Hi everyone, Lucia from EUobserver here 👋 Wr wanted to share an investigation by our colleague Nikolaj Nielsen, because it raises a question we don't discuss enough when talking about Europe's borders: what happens to people after EU authorities pass their location to someone else?

On 19 June, a boat carrying 27 people, including children, was struggling in the Mediterranean.

Frontex issued a Mayday relay and shared its coordinates with the Libyan rescue centre. Around 90 minutes later, the Libyan coastguard arrived, struck the boat and threw people into the water. Some of those brought aboard were beaten.

Nobody died. But Frontex's own fundamental rights officer concluded that the Libyan operation violated the right to life.

And that's what makes this investigation particularly important.

The EU describes cooperation with Libya partly as a way to save lives at sea. Yet its own rights officials are documenting what happens when those rescue operations turn violent.

If European agencies know that the authorities receiving these coordinates have a record of violence, can they really separate themselves from what happens next?

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38

u/MoonHero15 European Union 8d ago

This seems a bit of a nothingburger. Human trafficking was stopped and nobody died in the process. And although it is not the cleanest approach, you cannot treat everybody as a princess when they are attempting illegal migration. In the end deterrence is best approach to prevent people from risking their lives at sea.

19

u/tomassci Czechia 8d ago

"You cannot treat everybody as princess"

But you have to treat them as people. Not an amorphous mass of plague, as people. With human rights, that everybody loves to cherish until they apply to people they don't like.

13

u/Successful_Brush_972 8d ago

Tell that to the Libyan government.

8

u/Lower_Photo_389 7d ago

Absolutely. Responsibility lies with Libya. Next.

9

u/Acacias2001 Spanish globalist 8d ago

This is far from a nothng burger. Not “Treating people as princesses” does not meant you can just beat them up without cause or threaten their lives

5

u/BreadstickBear 8d ago

There's a long list of options between treating trafficked people as "princesses" and "throwing them into the sea off the coast of Lybia".

I know they're brown people and we're not supposed to care about their lives, so call me a hopeless sentimental if you want, but that's not fucking okay.

20

u/trisul-108 8d ago

In this case, the Libyans violated that right among others, he says.

exactly

If European agencies know that the authorities receiving these coordinates have a record of violence, can they really separate themselves from what happens next?

The EU cannot and must not take responsibility for Libya, Turkey, Israel, US, Saudi Arabia, China ... and the whole world.

No one is asking anyone else to take responsibility for everything, only the EU is the target of these ideas. They are even demanding the EU to be most responsible for what the US and Israel do in Gaza and Iran. We are even the only ones responsible for global warming while Russia, China and the US still increase emissions without blowback.

Let's stop with this bullshit.

6

u/isaxamuelsson Sweden 4d ago

Frontex did the right thing. Libya did not. Its very simple.