Europes own ICE: Frontex

Different contexts, same repressive principles.
Whether it’s the waters of the Mediterranean or cities in the #US, the machinery of exclusion is the same. We often hear mainstream European voices criticize the horrors of #ICE, but they conveniently forget that a mirror image exists in our own backyard: #Frontex.

Neither force is out there "protecting" us; they are enforcing a global ideology of racial control.

We need to resist the violent, racist, and colonial oppression being practiced by these border forces every single day.
Solidarity with all people on the move. From the Turtle Island to the #CentralMed, the struggle is one.

Jan 22nd 2026
380 people missing in the the #CentralMed
They drowned while searching for a safe life

An iron boat with 61 people, exhausted from being at sea without eating for three days, some of them with hypothermia, was found by the Italian Coast Guard on January 22nd.

These people faced a cyclone that devastated the coasts of Southern Italy, Tunisia and Libya, with waves up to 10 metres high and wind gusts up to 150 kilometres per hour.

Two one-year-old twins travelling with their mother have been lost at sea. Shortly after disembarkation, one man died in the emergency room. His name was S. Dembele.

We mourn S. Dembele, these twin girls, and all the around 380 people that left Tunisia in the same few days, in other boats whose fate we have no knowledge of.

What we do know is that people keep dying at sea, with the complicity and the policies made by Italy and the #EU.

Rest in Power.

#CyclonHarry #SAR

While boat drivers are labeled and criminalised as smugglers, the real traffickers, like Libyan warlord and torturer Gheniwa, who came to #Italy not long ago unscathed, or Almasri before him, remain untouched.

No one who had to pass through #Lybia and its prisons to cross the #CentralMed can deny having been subjected to systematic violence, torture, sexual harassment and rape.

How can the Italian government equate captains and the people who actually are on the boats with those who profit from their suffering like Gheniwa and Almasri? The latter take flights, sometimes state owned, their entry is accepted and their health is taken care of.

We ultimately need safe escape routes and human rights for all. Human trafficking and the criminalization of people on the move must finally be brought to an end.

#HumanRights #SAR #FreedomOfMovement

Photo2: GettyImages, 3 ANSA

Update on the Mediterranean Sea

In 2024, a record 8,938 refugees lost their lives, making it the deadliest year for displaced people worldwide, according to statistics published by #IOM.

The first quarter of 2025
- Italy has confirmed that the secret services used invasive military spyware Paragon #Graphite to monitor activists from Mediterranea Saving Humans and Refugees In Libya.

- Malta’s Prime Minister, Abela, said he will push to reform the European Convention on Human Rights, calling it "outdated", as he aims to simplify the deportation process for asylum seekers.

-The #EU Commission proposed the Common European System for Returns, a way to have faster deportations and "return hubs" in third countries, an indirect term for deportation centers.

- Mass graves containing the bodies of people on the move have been found in #Libya.

- The "State Trafficking Report” has exposed a human trafficking network involving #Tunisian police and military selling people on the move to armed Libyan groups and the Libyan army. All while Tunisia and Libya continue receiving European and Italian financial support.

383 missing or dead people have already been recorded in the Mediterranean in the first three months of 2025. Every single one of these deaths could have been prevented. Every single one has been accepted by the responsible politicians without turning a hair.

If a human life is no longer worth anything - what then?
Stand up for human rights for all! Stand in solidarity!

#SAR #HumanRights #FreedomOfMovement #CentralMed

"Italy Threatens to Ground Rescue Planes in the Mediterranean"

-- https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/22/italy-threatens-ground-rescue-planes-mediterranean

Civilian boat spotting is essential given the opacity and collaboration with the Lybian milicias (so-called Lybian Coastguards) by Frontex, and to document the human rights abuse (violence) from those milicias.

#SeaWatch #Seabird2 #HPI #HumanitarianPilotsInitiative #PilotesVolontaires #criminalization #Migration #EU #CentralMed #AbolishFrontex

"Frontex gave away the location of migrant boats to the Libyan Coast Guard approximately 2,200 times, usually via email, in the last three years – despite being aware of the regular instances of violence they commit."

https://www.lighthousereports.com/investigation/2200-frontex-emails-to-libya/

#LightHouseReports #Spiegel #Frontex #EU #LibyanCoastGard #Migration #CentralMed #SafePassage

"Sea-Watch 5 rescues 119 persons on Christmas eve"
-- https://sea-watch.org/en/sea-watch-5-rescues-on-christmas-eve/

Yay ❤️ * 119 💗

... aaand the Port of Safety assigned by Italy is 1000+ kms away. Merry Christmas Piantedosi

#SeaWatch #SeaWatch5 #SeaRescue #Italy #DecretoPiantedosi #Migration #CentralMed

An article about the situation in the #centralmed .
#sar #solidarityandresistance

https://www.meltingpot.org/en/2023/10/barriers-and-people-in-the-central-mediterranean/
CC-BY-SA RESQSHIP for pics

"Charles Michel questions the role of NGOs" - the subtext being NGOs = NGOs that prevent life loss in the central med
-- Kudos to the interviewer from #TimesOfMalta https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/watch-charles-michel-questions-migration-ngos.1058601

#Migration #CharlesMichel #EU #CentralMed #MissionLifeLine #SeaWatch #ResQPeople #ResqShip #SOSMediterranee #MSF #OpenArms #SMH #MareLiberum #SeaEye #RefugeeRescue #Mediterranea #MVLouiseMichel #SeaRescue #SafePassage #NoBorders