[ad_1]
Officials at the EU’s border protection agency Frontex have been shown to be close to so-called setbacks. Refugee ships in the Aegean were illegally driven back instead of rescuing the occupants.
By Heiner Hoffmann, SWR
The European border protection agency Frontex is involved in the illegal rejections of migrants by the Greek coast guard in the Aegean Sea. That has a joint investigation of the Policy Magazine ARD Report Mainz, the “Spiegel” and the media “Lighthouse Reports”, “Bellingcat” and the Japanese television station “TV Asahi”.
Consequently, Frontex officials have been shown to have been close to at least six of the so-called setbacks since April. A video shows how a Frontex ship initially blocks an overloaded refugee ship, but fails to save its occupants. Instead, in another recorded scene, Frontex officers pass in front of the refugee ship at high speed and then leave the scene.
The resulting waves are, according to many other affected people, a typical procedure for so-called setbacks in the Aegean Sea: they allow the inflatable boats to drift back towards Turkey. Other videos show how the Greek coast guard then pushes the inflatable boat towards Turkey. Lawyer Dana Schmalz from the Max Planck Institute for International Law in Heidelberg says in an interview with Mainz reportthat Frontex should have rescued the refugees in the unseaworthy rubber boat right away. In this case, the EU border protection agency is involved in an illegal pushback.
Research months
The videos were apparently recorded by Turkish coast guard officials, and have been verified by investigators using image comparisons, available position data, and internal sources. During months of investigation, journalists tracked the positions of Frontex units and compared them with the position data of the returns. They spoke with eyewitnesses, refugees and Frontex officials. They saw internal documents, as well as dozens of satellite videos and photos.
Frontex: all reported incidents forwarded
Frontex did not comment on the individual incidents requested, but claimed that the officers were bound by a human rights code of conduct. All reported incidents were passed on to the Greek coast guard, which launched an internal investigation. The Greek government, in turn, denied allegations of illegal returns on demand. They comply with the law and do not make illegal rejections.
Insider: Embellished internal reports
Confidential conversations with Frontex officials also suggest that they should finalize their reports before they are sent to Frontex headquarters in Warsaw. They describe the refugees in so-called reports, that is, surveys conducted by Frontex officials, repeatedly testify about the setbacks they have experienced. But in the end, these complaints would no longer appear explicitly in the reports, they would be embellished, thus the complaint from the officials.
The opposition demands a clarification
The Greens’ immigration policy spokesperson, Luise Amtsberg, is now demanding clarification: “I hope that the incidents are fully clarified and that violations of the law are punished accordingly. The federal government must finally position itself for this, as Federal Republic of Germany has its own police officers in the context of the Frontex operation on the site. ” The human rights spokesperson for the parliamentary group Die Linke also spoke Mainz report Contrary to the investigation: “Now it has come true, which for a long time was feared. This finding shows once again to what extent the EU is willing to go with its isolation policy.”
