This text is an excerpt from a report trying to defend SAR NGO. Only adjectives have been removed to make the report less unbiased:
"The argument [against] NGOs operating SAR in the Mediterranean for enabling the arrival of illegalised migrants on European shores had been until recently confined to the conspirationist discourse of small groups (...). On 15 November 2016 for example, GEFIRA, a Dutch-based think-tank, published an article with the (...) title: “Caught in the act: NGOs deal in migrant smuggling” in which it accused NGOs of being “part of the human smuggling network”. On 5 December 2016 the same organisation published another article titled: “NGOs are smuggling immigrants into Europe on an industrial scale”, arguing that NGO SAR operations amounted to an “illegal human traffic operation”. The article, which as the previous one was quickly picked up in several (...) news outlets, was accompanied by the release of a video monitoring the activities of SAR NGOs through AIS vessel tracking data.
These (...) arguments however remained confined to the limited audience of these groups until the publication of an article in the Financial Times on 15 December 2016. The piece was based on “confidential reports” by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which according to the journalists accused the NGOs of “colluding” with smugglers (see Annex). The article mentioned a particular incident that the agency considered to be “the first reported case where the criminal networks directly approached an EU vessel and smuggled the migrants directly into Europe using the NGO vessel”, a claim we will assess within this report. It further reported the agency deploring that “the number of rescues triggered by a distress signal fell from roughly two-thirds of all incidents this summer to barely one in 10 in October (…). This drop-off coincided with a jump in the number of rescues carried out by NGOs in the central Mediterranean.” Despite a partial retraction that forced the Financial Times to admit that it had “overstated” its accusations, Frontex would consolidate its critique of SAR NGOs in subsequent publications in early February 2017.
On 15 February 2017, Frontex published its annual Risk Analysis Report, in which it made publicly accessible several of the claims that had been echoed by the Financial Times. (...) With regards to the central Mediterranean, Frontex notes in its annual report that “important changes were observed on this migratory route in 2016”. However, of the many evolutions that the agency might have mentioned based on the reports available to it and that we will discuss in more detail further on, Frontex focuses on one – the role of NGOs in SAR activities. It first observes the decrease in satellite phone calls to the Italian Coast Guard Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Rome to trigger rescue operations, which makes detecting and rescuing migrants more difficult and may result in vessels not being rescued. It then implicitly draws a “parallel” between this decrease and the increasing presence of SAR NGOs, suggesting a correlation – also shown in the graph reproduced below (...).
Frontex’s report then continues to draw a second “parallel”: “NGO presence and activities close to, and occasionally within, the 12-mile Libyan territorial waters nearly doubled compared with the previous year, totalling 15 NGO assets (14 maritime and 1 aerial). In parallel, the overall number of incidents increased dramatically”.
Frontex then generalises its critique of SAR to all actors operating close to the Libyan coast (...): “Libyan-based smugglers (…) heavily relied on the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), and associated SAR as well as humanitarian assistance efforts, turning it into a distinct tactical advantage. (…) Dangerous crossings on unseaworthy and overloaded vessels were organised with the main purpose of being detected by EUNAVFOR Med/Frontex and NGO vessels”.
The section of the report concludes that:
“Apparently, all parties involved in SAR operations in the Central Mediterranean unintentionally help criminals achieve their objectives at minimum cost, strengthen their business model by increasing the chances of success. Migrants and refugees – encouraged by the stories of those who had successfully made it in the past – attempt the dangerous crossing since they are aware of and rely on humanitarian assistance to reach the EU.”
Frontex, 2017 Annual Risk Analysis report.
"The argument [against] NGOs operating SAR in the Mediterranean for enabling the arrival of illegalised migrants on European shores had been until recently confined to the conspirationist discourse of small groups (...). On 15 November 2016 for example, GEFIRA, a Dutch-based think-tank, published an article with the (...) title: “Caught in the act: NGOs deal in migrant smuggling” in which it accused NGOs of being “part of the human smuggling network”. On 5 December 2016 the same organisation published another article titled: “NGOs are smuggling immigrants into Europe on an industrial scale”, arguing that NGO SAR operations amounted to an “illegal human traffic operation”. The article, which as the previous one was quickly picked up in several (...) news outlets, was accompanied by the release of a video monitoring the activities of SAR NGOs through AIS vessel tracking data.
These (...) arguments however remained confined to the limited audience of these groups until the publication of an article in the Financial Times on 15 December 2016. The piece was based on “confidential reports” by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which according to the journalists accused the NGOs of “colluding” with smugglers (see Annex). The article mentioned a particular incident that the agency considered to be “the first reported case where the criminal networks directly approached an EU vessel and smuggled the migrants directly into Europe using the NGO vessel”, a claim we will assess within this report. It further reported the agency deploring that “the number of rescues triggered by a distress signal fell from roughly two-thirds of all incidents this summer to barely one in 10 in October (…). This drop-off coincided with a jump in the number of rescues carried out by NGOs in the central Mediterranean.” Despite a partial retraction that forced the Financial Times to admit that it had “overstated” its accusations, Frontex would consolidate its critique of SAR NGOs in subsequent publications in early February 2017.
On 15 February 2017, Frontex published its annual Risk Analysis Report, in which it made publicly accessible several of the claims that had been echoed by the Financial Times. (...) With regards to the central Mediterranean, Frontex notes in its annual report that “important changes were observed on this migratory route in 2016”. However, of the many evolutions that the agency might have mentioned based on the reports available to it and that we will discuss in more detail further on, Frontex focuses on one – the role of NGOs in SAR activities. It first observes the decrease in satellite phone calls to the Italian Coast Guard Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Rome to trigger rescue operations, which makes detecting and rescuing migrants more difficult and may result in vessels not being rescued. It then implicitly draws a “parallel” between this decrease and the increasing presence of SAR NGOs, suggesting a correlation – also shown in the graph reproduced below (...).
Frontex’s report then continues to draw a second “parallel”: “NGO presence and activities close to, and occasionally within, the 12-mile Libyan territorial waters nearly doubled compared with the previous year, totalling 15 NGO assets (14 maritime and 1 aerial). In parallel, the overall number of incidents increased dramatically”.
Frontex then generalises its critique of SAR to all actors operating close to the Libyan coast (...): “Libyan-based smugglers (…) heavily relied on the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), and associated SAR as well as humanitarian assistance efforts, turning it into a distinct tactical advantage. (…) Dangerous crossings on unseaworthy and overloaded vessels were organised with the main purpose of being detected by EUNAVFOR Med/Frontex and NGO vessels”.
The section of the report concludes that:
“Apparently, all parties involved in SAR operations in the Central Mediterranean unintentionally help criminals achieve their objectives at minimum cost, strengthen their business model by increasing the chances of success. Migrants and refugees – encouraged by the stories of those who had successfully made it in the past – attempt the dangerous crossing since they are aware of and rely on humanitarian assistance to reach the EU.”
Frontex, 2017 Annual Risk Analysis report.
Map and figures of the situation in the central Mediterranean between January and December 2016. Within the considered timeframe: migrants were rescued increasingly close to Libyan shores, as shown by Frontex and Coast Guard data; Frontex’s Triton operational area and EUNAVFOR MED’s operations area remained unchanged; Search and Rescue NGOs deployed a maximum of 12 vessels, and became the largest SAR operator in the central Mediterranean; crossings were comparable to 2014 and 2015 over most of the year, apart for the months of October and November which saw far more crossings then in previous years; deaths reached a record high and mortality rates peaked in Spring and Autumn. Credit: Forensic Oceanography. GIS analysis: Rossana Padeletti. Design: Samaneh Moafi.
Map of SAR events between 2014-2016, showing that they grew closer to the Libyan coast.
AIS tracks of NGO ships contained in the final document produced by the Defence commission of the Italian Senate.
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