On Friday 5 September, the NGO SOS MÉDITERRANÉE and French Greens/EFA MEP Mounir Satouri once again called on the EU to stop cooperating with Libyan border guards and to cut off funding to Libya to manage migratory flows. The NGO’s ship Ocean Viking was fired on with live ammunition by the Libyan coastguard on 24 August.
“As an elected MEP, I am a little ashamed of what the EU is doing in this matter”, commented the French MEP at a press briefing dedicated to new documented evidence on the shootings. The EU is “not only turning a blind eye, but is an active accomplice in these crimes”, he added, explaining that the Commission had not yet provided any response to these incidents.
For Mounir Satouri, these events show the most extreme side of “what the externalisation policy [of the EU] produces” in terms of migration. “We have gone one step further with this boat lent by Italy with humanitarian personnel supported by the EU” and Libyan bullets “paid for by Europe”.
“This attack must serve as a wake-up call. Humanitarian workers and survivors cannot be left unprotected at sea while European states continue to outsource border control to a Libyan authority that has repeatedly demonstrated its contempt for international law”, said the NGO. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)