EU border agency Frontex sued by Sudanese refugee trapped in Libya

For the first time, an asylum seeker still trapped in Libya has been able to lodge a legal challenge against Frontex – the European Union’s land and sea border surveillance agency – over aerial surveillance over the central Mediterranean, a report by The il Fatto Quotidiano Foundation said.

The Sudanese refugee was able to denounce the “army” of European patrol boats thanks to Front-Lex, a Dutch humanitarian NGO, in partnership with the “Refugees in Libya” organisation. Front-Lex’s lawyer, Iftach Cohen, has submitted a legal notice to Frontex under Article 265 TFEU, calling on it to immediately suspend and cease all communications with Libyan entities in relation to so-called “dangerous situations” in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, the NGO demands that Frontex prohibit Italy and Malta from sharing the surveillance data collected by the European agency’s planes with the Libyans.

This is an unprecedented legal action first and foremost because it is based on the alleged complicity of the EU regarding the crimes against humanity that occurred in Libya . Secondly, it is the first time that a refugee still trapped in Libya without protection has managed to initiate proceedings to have his rights recognised. The Front-Lex team has collected evidence which also highlights how all the previous directors – including the penultimate one, Fabrice Leggeri, now candidate for the European elections for Marine Le Pen’s party – and other Frontex entities have admitted that handing over the position of the boats of refugees to Libyan entities is illegal under European law .

From the report of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya of the EU Human Rights Council of 23 March, asylum seekers intercepted and forcibly repatriated to Libya, once re-landed in Libya, are detained and become ” victims of crimes against humanity “. . Frontex justifies sharing the tracking of refugee boats with Tripoli with its obligation, “pursuant to the international legal framework of the SAR”, to transmit all information on the “vessel in distress” to the competent RCC of the search and rescue area , which is Tripoli in most cases.

Cohen disagrees because Frontex’s legal obligation to transmit information to the relevant RCC in case of danger under international maritime law is only one of the Agency’s many legal obligations, such as the ban on collective pushbacks of intercepted asylum seekers at sea en route to countries where there is a risk of persecution. “These obligations derive from the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union which is constitutional in nature. We have now gathered sufficient evidence to demonstrate that in the Libyan SAR zone virtually all refugee boats detected by Frontex are automatically classified as being in ‘dangerous situation’ such that Frontex can immediately transmit the location to Tripoli and refrain from engaging NGO rescue ships nearby,” explains Cohen. As a result, refugee boats are not contacted by Frontex aircraft as required by EU legislation to check whether they require assistance.

“On the other hand, when Frontex detects a refugee boat in the SAR zone or in the territorial waters of a Member State, as in the cases of Pylos (Greece) or Cutro in Italy, it does not classify cases that are clearly ‘situations of danger’ ‘ so that it can refrain from alerting the RCC of the member state, leaving it sufficient power and time to involve the Libyans even in its own territorial waters and thus prevent the disembarkation in Europe. It is a real exploitation of the ‘situation of hardship’. These are not people who have cell phones and fashionable shoes as your deputy prime minister Salvini says when describing asylum seekers but people who suffer the worst abuses against humanity .”