NEW EVIDENCE UNDERMINES EU REPORT TYING REFUGEE RESCUE GROUP TO SMUGGLERS, Zach Campbell

https://theintercept.com/2017/04/02/new-evidence-undermines-eu-report-tying-refugee-rescue-group-to-smugglers/

NEW EVIDENCE UNDERMINES EU REPORT TYING REFUGEE RESCUE GROUP TO SMUGGLERS
Zach Campbell
April 2 2017, 2:50 p.m.

Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images

LAST MONTH, AN ITALIAN PROSECUTOR opened an investigation into whether
nonprofits working to rescue refugees in the Mediterranean had
connections to smuggling operations.

“We want to know who is behind all these humanitarian groups that have
proliferated in the last few years,” the prosecutor said, and “where all
the money they have is coming from.”

The implication of the investigation is inflammatory: Why would
humanitarian groups want to have anything do with human traffickers or
smugglers?

But the idea that nonprofits are directly involved in smuggling people
into Europe has swept through conservative media in recent months,
fueled by a news report that the European Union’s border agency,
Frontex, had “accused charities operating in the Mediterranean of
colluding with people smugglers.” The report, which appeared in the
Financial Times in December, didn’t name any particular charities and it
quickly started to show holes; within a week, the paper issued a
correction and Frontex distanced itself from the accusations.

Despite the walk-back, the story stuck, and the Italian prosecutor cited
Frontex’s concerns about “collusion with smugglers” in announcing his
investigation.

👁
Frontex Triton Analytical Report December 2016
9 pages

The Intercept has obtained a full copy of the Frontex report on which
the Financial Times story was based. The report, along with video
evidence and interviews with rescue workers who witnessed the incident
described in it, further undermine the allegations of collusion. In the
report, Frontex does say that people were smuggled to Europe via an NGO
ship. But the report provides little evidence for the allegation, and
what it does contain is contradicted by the rescue crew.
The confusion shows the fraught conditions of rescue work in the
Mediterranean — where smugglers and opportunists do take advantage of
refugees and their rescuers, but where the situation is not always so
cut and dry. In dire rescues, if a nonprofit accepts help from nearby
Libyan boats, they may have no idea who they are working with.

“It’s not us that force the people on the boats and cause them to be out
there. But once they are out there, we all have to apply maritime law,¨
said Ruben Neugebauer, who works with the group Sea-Watch. “If there is
a boat in distress, we are obliged to help, but also a potential
smuggler is also obliged to help.”

Neugebauer, echoing others who were unwilling to go on the record for
fear of jeopardizing their relationship with Frontex, said he believes
that the leak to the Financial Times is part of a deliberate effort to
move nonprofits out of the search and rescue area near Libya.

“The accusation that comes from Frontex, it’s no coincidence,” says
Neugebauer. “We think it’s the start of a new strategy to criminalize
NGOs, and to make a public picture of NGOs cooperating with smugglers.”

Frontex has publicly put forward the position that rescue patrols near
the Libyan coast encourage the business of smuggling, but a spokesman
for the agency denied that it had accused nonprofits of working with
smugglers. “No, we don’t [believe that] and we never said that,” said
Ewa Monclure, a spokesperson for the agency, when asked about the leaked
report.

TOPSHOT - Migrants and refugees sit on a rubber boat as the Libyan
coastguards patrol, during a rescue operation of the Topaz Responder, a
rescue ship run by Maltese NGO "Moas" and the Italian Red Cross, on
November 4, 2016 off th Libyan coast.Around 750 migrants were rescued
across the Mediterranean Thursday by the Italian coast guard, a Frontex
ship, a Save The Children vessel, German NGO Jugend Rettet's Iuventa and
two boats run by the Malta-based MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station).
But at least 110 migrants are feared drowned after they were forced at
gunpoint to set sail from Libya, while many more may have died in a
separate shipwreck, survivors said. / AFP / ANDREAS SOLARO (Photo credit
should read ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images) Refugees sit on a rubber
boat alongside a Libyan coast guard patrol. While the European Union is
working to train the coast guard to catch people smugglers, Libyan
authorities have also been implicated in smuggling. Photo: Andreas
Solaro/AFP/Getty Images
The Engine Fishers

The confidential report from Frontex’s intelligence-gathering arm, the
Risk Analysis Unit, is dated December 9, 2016. It mentions only one
nonprofit by name: LifeBoat, a small German organization dedicated to
picking up refugees stranded at sea between Libya and Italy. The report
describes one incident where two people were transferred to LifeBoat’s
rescue ship, Minden, by “persons pretending to be fisherman” on a small
boat flying the Libyan flag. It states that the two rescued migrants
said that the crew of the Libyan boat were “people smugglers.” From
this, Frontex asserts that this was “the first reported case where
criminal networks directly approached an EU vessel and smuggled the
migrants directly into Europe using the NGO vessel.” (The report never
outright accuses LifeBoat of colluding with smugglers.)

The sourcing is vague; at one point, the report cites “Italian
authorities,” but it is not clear who, whether Frontex or Italian
investigators, or both, actually debriefed the migrants, and when.
Advocates have complained that these debriefings sometimes take place in
coercive situations, and refugees feel pressured to name smugglers or
inform on other refugees, believing that it would help their asylum
petitions.

Members of the LifeBoat crew told The Intercept that the Libyan men were
more likely locals known as “engine fishers,” who make a living
scavenging the engines from refugee rafts.

Susanna Salm-Hain, director of LifeBoat, said that it’s “quite a normal
thing” to have engine fishers around during these rescues, most of which
take place between 12 and 24 miles from the Libyan coast. The engine
fishers wait for boats full of refugees to arrive in international
waters and then steal their engines to sell back on land. (Traffickers
don’t pilot the refugee boats themselves; usually, one of the passengers
drives in exchange for a free ride.) According to crew from
LifeBoat,Médecins Sans Frontières, Sea-Watch and other nonprofits
working in the area, when there are no refugee boats to scavenge, engine
fishers are also often just out fishing, for fish.

When a migrant boat is sinking, said Christian Brensing, captain of the
Minden, the engine fishers generally arrive much faster than the larger
boats. They have helped to distribute life vests and, in a handful of
cases, pulled people out of the water and transferred them to rescue ships.

“It’s not about working with engine fishers. It’s about accepting that
they are helping,” Brensing explains, “because they are only helping
when the people in the water are in distress — when they are already in
the water.”

Adam Marlatt, a LifeBoat crew member, remembers the incident described
in the Frontex report clearly. It was November 22, and LifeBoat had just
finished their sixth rescue of the day. Marlatt, out in an inflatable
raft used to transfer people from sinking vessels to a main ship like
the Minden, came across a small vessel with five people aboard, flying
the Libyan flag. Marlatt told the The Intercept he recognized the three
crew of the Libyan boat from previous rescues, and believes they are
engine fishers.

In video from the camera mounted on Marlatt’s helmet, the crew of the
Libyan boat flag him down, and the driver signals to two people sitting
in the boat with him, looking huddled and wet. In broken English, he
says that he found them in the water. Marlatt radios to the Minden for
instructions and then takes the two men aboard his raft. Marlatt then
drives off toward the Topaz Responder, the ship of another nonprofit,
called Migrant Offshore Aid Station, or MOAS. Later in the video, the
two men are seen boarding Topaz Responder — not the Minden, as the
Frontex report claims. (It’s not clear how Frontex got the detail wrong;
MOAS appears to have provided them with some information, as a photo
sourced to them appears in the report. Asked for comment, a MOAS
spokesperson said that they did not have any information about the
incident or the report.)

Marlatt said the engine fishers had clearly just pulled two people out
of the water. “You could tell, one because they were soaked in water and
two, because one of the guys had a severely dislocated shoulder…They had
been trying to swim for a while.”

VIBO VALENTIA, ITALY - NOVEMBER 24:  Refugees disembark the MOAS vessel
"Topaz Responder" on November 24, 2016 in Vibo Valentia, Italy. The
three girls were saved from a sinking rubber boat on November 22, but
lost their mother who is believed to have drowned. The MOAS team worked
through the night of the 21st and into the next morning rescuing
'approximately' 600 people from several vessels though that figure could
change. It is believed that several people had died after one rubber
dinghy capsized. 117 people were saved from that incident, but many were
left suffering from hypothermia and various other minor injuries. MOAS
were patrolling in the 'SAR Search and Rescue Zone, approximate 20KM off
the coastline of Libya, and running rescue missions for the many
migrants and refugees who continue to attempt to make the dangerous
crossing across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. MOAS are a Malta based
registered foundation dedicated to providing professional
search-and-rescue assistance to refugees and migrants in distress at sea
and work alongside with the Red Cross on board the Topaz Responder. The
number of deaths this year of people crossing the Mediterranean has
risen to almost 4,300. MOAS alone have rescued around 19,000.  (Photo by
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Refugees disembark in Italy from a rescue ship
run by a nonprofit. An average of 3,500 people have died each year while
trying to make the journey to Italy from North Africa since 2014. Photo:
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Ambiguous Allies

Whatever happened in this particular incident, the nonprofits are in a
bind. Some charities, as well as the Italian coast guard, regularly
receive calls from the Libyan coast, presumably from smugglers, to
announce the departure of refugee boats, and they base their rescue
operations on that information. Engine fishers, fisherman and other
locals will also often alert the nonprofits working at sea to refugee
boats on their way from Libya.

In the sea near Libya, it’s not always clear who is who. Martlett has
seen engine fishers armed with automatic rifles, and his colleague
Salm-Hain remembered seeing one wearing a Libyan coast guard uniform.
Neugebauer, of Sea-Watch, recalled an incident where armed members of
the Libyan coast guard ordered them to take two Libyan men aboard. In
that case, the transfer had been approved by the Italian coast guard; he
called it the Libyan coast guard’s “luxury line to Europe.” The Frontex
report also states that “Libya’s local authorities are involved in
smuggling activities,” citing the testimony of migrants, the Italian
coast guard, and European military forces, all describing smugglers in
police uniforms.

In the case of a direct transfer from a Libyan boat, the nonprofits
argue that it’s their duty to pick up all distress cases that they
encounter, and that might mean working with whomever is nearby.

Neugebauer offered a hypothetical: ¨[Frontex] could then film us, or a
smuggler boat, putting people on board of the Sea-Watch and they would
have clearly cooperated with a smuggler,” he said. “But in the same
moment, we would have broken the law if we had not [saved them].”

Frontex’s goals and those of charity operations off the Libyan coast are
directly at odds. As The Intercept has reported, Frontex keeps its
patrols closer to the Italian coast, far from the zone where most
shipwrecks actually occur. Frontex maintains that humanitarian rescue
operations near Libya encourage smugglers to send them out in in
unseaworthy boats, counting on the fact that they will be picked up quickly.

Ewa Monclure, the Frontex spokesperson, argued that NGO presence
increases migration flows.

“There were never more [NGO] boats closer to Libya,¨ she said, “and the
numbers of deaths are higher this year, by thousands.”

Still, Monclure would not say whether Frontex wanted NGOs to stop
patrolling the Libyan coast.

In its own operations, Frontex seems to face the same quandary as the
NGOs. In December Frontex announced that they would begin training the
Libyan coast guard to go after smugglers. At the same time, in the
internal report dated just days before, Frontex was circulating
allegations that Libyan authorities were working with those same
smugglers they’re now teaching them to catch.

Indeed, at sea, it’s hard to know who you’re working with.

Top photo: Refugees sit on a rubber boat off the Libyan coast in the
Mediterranean, before being rescued by the ship Topaz Responder, run by
the non-profit MOAS and Italian Red Cross.