EU: Frontex Complicit in Abuse in Libya

(Brussels, December 12, 2022) – The use by the EU’s border agency, Frontex, of aerial surveillance to enable the Libyan Coast Guard to intercept migrant boats, knowing that migrants and asylum seekers will face systematic and widespread abuse when forcibly returned to Libya, makes Frontex complicit in the abuse, Human Rights Watch and Border Forensics said in a multimedia research feature released today.
 
Using data analysis and research testimony, the interactive web feature “Airborne Complicity: Frontex Aerial Surveillance Enables Abuse” documents the role that Frontex-chartered aircraft – several planes and a drone – play in detecting migrants’ boats in the central Mediterranean and their subsequent interception by Libyan forces.