Migrant rescues off Libya encourage traffickers: Frontex

The head of EU border agency Frontex on Feb. 27 criticized charities that rescue migrants off Libya, arguing that they encourage the traffickers who profit from the dangerous Mediterranean crossings.

Such rescue operations "should be reevaluated," Fabrice Leggeri told Germany's Die Welt daily, also accusing the groups of not effectively cooperating with security agencies against human traffickers.

Leggeri said 40 percent of recent rescue operations at sea off the North African country "were carried out by non-government organizations."

He said that under maritime law everyone at sea has a duty to rescue vessels and people in distress.

"But we must avoid supporting the business of criminal networks and traffickers in Libya through European vessels picking up migrants ever closer to the Libyan coast," said the director of Warsaw-based Frontex.

"This leads traffickers to force even more migrants onto unseaworthy boats with insufficient water and fuel than in previous years." 

Frontex operates on the EU's external borders, off Italy and the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, but not off the coast of Libya, which has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 overthrow of Moammer Gadhafi.

The Frontex boss also charged that some NGOs cooperate poorly with EU security agencies, which "makes it more difficult ... to gain information on trafficking networks through interviews with migrants and to open police investigations." 

Frontex had criticized NGOs in a report in December, charging they were picking up migrants at sea "like taxis." 

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) at the time labelled the charges "extremely serious and damaging" and said its humanitarian action was not "the cause but a response" to...