20 years of Frontex: Human rights abuses getting worse

“A pushback operation is not just torture and trauma; it’s a profound humiliation—being treated as if you are not a human being. When Frontex stands behind the suffering of me and my friends, it feels as if all of Europe wanted us to suffer. And that is the most humiliating thing of all.”

These are the words of Syrian asylum seeker, Alaa Hamoudi. The Hellenic Coast Guard left him adrift in the Aegean Sea for 17 hours before he was taken to Turkey and detained in inhumane conditions. A Frontex plane reportedly surveilled the entire pushback, and when questioned about it Fabrice Leggeri, then director of the agency, lied to the European Parliament.

Today marks 20 years of Frontex. In that time, the agency’s budget has skyrocketed by 14,000 percent and its powers have expanded accordingly.

Frontex now has a hand in screening procedures and return operations, the armed standing corps has continuously grown, and they now have the competence to acquire and operate their own assets in countries of operation.

And those countries are no longer limited to member states: Since launching joint operations in Albania in 2019, the agency has been active in countries across the Western Balkans region, Northern and Western Africa.

This growth shows no signs of slowing, with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen pledging to triple the Frontex standing corps - to 30,000 members - as one of her priorities in her acceptance speech this July.

In the halls of the European institutions in Brussels, for many the agency stands for ‘stronger borders’ and ‘orderly, managed migration’, but for people crossing borders it represents something quite different.

In Albania, people have been hung out of cars and beaten.

In Greece, they have been thrown into the Evros river with their hands tied, and left adrift on floating life rafts - at least 55,000 people between 2020 and 2023 have been pushed back across the Aegean sea into Turkish territorial waters.

In Bulgaria, they have been attacked by dogs and shot at - official reports state almost 150,000 have been pushed back into Turkey over the last four years, but the real numbers are likely far higher.

At all of these borders, Frontex’s complicity is undeniable - people have the right to ask for asylum, and stopping them from exerting that right is a clear violation of the law.

Not only that, the agency has actively participated in covering up these crimes and, in some cases, they have been directly involved.

And before people can even reach the continent of Europe, as they cross deadly seas in ramshackle boats, overfilled with people seeking safety, Frontex is there too.

The agency has expanded its role in Africa, through intelligence sharing, the deployment of Frontex Liaison Officers to Niger, Senegal and Libya, working arrangements on border security and on deportations with several countries, providing training and equipment to border forces.

The cooperation with often authoritarian governments leads to increases in violence, human rights violations, and internal repression in the countries concerned.

In the Central Mediterranean, Frontex’s drones communicate the positions of these boats to the so-called Libyan Coast Guard who intercept them and take them back to Libyan detention centres where they face crimes against humanity.

In the last three years, Frontex has done this at least 2,200 times, affecting tens of thousands of people. 

The agency, and the EU, try to pass these off as life-saving actions by Frontex who alert the nearest country’s rescue coordination centre to launch an operation to ‘save’ the people at risk at sea.

In reality, they ‘save’ people from death by drowning close to European shores, so they can die hidden in Libyan detention centres instead.

Frontex’s 20th anniversary is not a cause for celebration but an urgent reminder that the dismantling of an agency that has consistently perpetuated human rights abuses across Europe’s borders is long overdue.

Time and again, Frontex failed to alert nearby humanitarian Search and Rescue ships that could ensure that people are disembarked in safe harbours in Italy and Malta, where their claims for asylum can be properly processed.

In fact, even when ships have been in the Italian and Maltese search and rescue zones, rather than the Libyan one, Frontex has instead chosen to pass the coordinates over to the so-called Libyan coast guard instead of their EU counterparts.

Just like Alaa Hamoudi before us, we at Refugees in Libya are taking legal action against Frontex and demanding they end this practice.

But the issue doesn’t end there: Frontex is doing the same in Tunisia despite numerous reports of people being beaten and dumped in deserts by the Tunisian authorities.

When Hans Leijtens took over the role of executive director of Frontex in March 2023, taking on an agency mired in scandal and corruption, he said the ‘toxic’ atmosphere which allowed rights violations to continue unabated was a thing of the past.

But pushbacks continue in the Aegean, Frontex officers are intimidated into silence in Bulgaria, and people are abducted at sea and brought back to Libyan detention sites time and time again. 

Nothing has changed under Leijtens' leadership, and instead of reckoning with the reality of what Frontex is - an EU wide paramilitary (or militarised) police force complicit in horrendous abuses - the Commission seeks to strengthen and expand its mandate even more, emboldened by so-called centrist politicians, such as members of the liberal Renew group who called for still more funding for the agency in October’s plenary session in Strasbourg.

Frontex’s 20th anniversary is not a cause for celebration but an urgent reminder that the dismantling of an agency that has consistently perpetuated human rights abuses across Europe’s borders is long overdue.

The EU needs to reckon with its role in driving people from their homes in the first place, and ensure safe mobility for all.