Frontex, the agency responsible for the EU's external borders, is accused by several media of tolerating abuses of migrants by local officials and of having violated human rights itself. evictions. A joint investigation by the investigative site Correctiv, the British daily Guardian and the German TV channel ARD, which will broadcast its report on Tuesday, accuses Frontex of leaving border guards "in Bulgaria, Hungary and Greece" to hunt down the applicants. shelter with dogs, resort to pepper sprays or repress them brutally.
The three media claim to rely on "hundreds of internal documents Frontex" to support these abuses, regularly "classified without action" by the European agency, says ARD in the first extracts unveiled on its website. But Frontex has the opportunity to withdraw its own staff from these countries and by not doing so, it is complicit, accused in the broadcast of ARD Stephan Kessler, the head of the Advisory Forum of this agency, a body of internal regulation responsible in particular for human rights issues.
The Warsaw-based agency says that so far no complaints have been lodged against a Frontex agent. It adds that it wants to "examine the question" and take "the necessary measures" with regard to these allegations. "It should be noted, however, that while the agency may suspend an agent deployed by Frontex in the course of its operations, it has no authority over the behavior of the police at the local borders or the power to conduct investigations in the territory of the EU ", adds Frontex in a statement.
The European Commission takes these accusations very seriously
For its part, the European Commission will "follow" Frontex's work to "see if the facts reported are accurate" and draw the "appropriate" consequences, said a spokeswoman, Mina Andreeva, at a meeting of press Monday. "Any form of violence and abuse against migrants and refugees is unacceptable," Mina Andreeva insisted, assuring the EU executive "take these accusations very seriously".
Moreover, according to another internal document, Frontex officials are directly involved in the expulsion of unaccompanied minors or asylum seekers sedated during their deportation flight.
After the migration influx in summer 2015, in 2016 Frontex saw its expanded mission and increased resources to become the "European Border and Coast Guard Agency". Frontex has about a thousand civil servants and a tank of 1,500 deployable reservists in the event of a crisis. For example, they can assist local officials by participating in the registration and identification of migrants upon arrival.