EU launches inquiry into handling of migrant disaster off Greek coast

The EU has launched an inquiry into the role of its border control agency Frontex after a migrant ship sank off the Greek coast in June, killing hundreds of people in one of the deadliest accidents in the Mediterranean Sea.

The inquiry launched on Wednesday by European ombudsman Emily O’Reilly will examine Frontex’s co-operation with national authorities on the search and rescue operation and how the agency ensures that fundamental rights during such operations are upheld.

“There is scope for greater clarity in relation to Frontex’s role in such operations,” O’Reilly wrote in a letter to Frontex chief Hans Leijtens. She said that while “investigations are taking place at the national level, it is clear that Frontex had an important role in the search and rescue mission from a co-ordination perspective”.

According to O’Reilly’s letter, the co-operation between Frontex and national authorities should include search and rescue support, but national rescue centres decide on the operations themselves.

The Adriana fishing vessel capsized in waters south-west of the Peloponnese peninsula on June 14. Eighty-two bodies were found in the search and rescue operations, with hundreds more missing, and 104 people were rescued. At least 400 people were estimated to have been on board.

Frontex detected the Adriana on June 13 shortly before 10am. The vessel, which was about 25 to 30 metres long, turned down repeated offers of assistance, according to Greek authorities, who added that the ship’s crew stated that they wished to continue sailing to Italy.

According to an account by Alarm Phone, an NGO that helps migrants in trouble to call for help, people on board the ship were making distress calls several hours before it sank during the night.

“It has been reported that in this instance Frontex alerted the Greek authorities to the ship’s presence and offered assistance, but it is not clear what else it could or should have done,” O’Reilly said. “Migration to Europe will continue and it is up to the EU to ensure that it acts in a way that maintains fundamental rights,” she added.

O’Reilly asked Frontex to hand over its report on the shipwreck of the Adriana, as well as reports on other incidents, including the sinking of boats off the Italian coast in February and near Sfax, Tunisia, in January.

“We look forward to fully co-operating with the ombudsman to explain the role Frontex plays in search and rescue operations,” Frontex said.

Such tragedies in the Mediterranean could “happen at any time”, Dimitrios Kairidis, Greek migration and asylum minister, told the Financial Times. “We have not managed to find a way to prevent unseaworthy boats full of irregular migrants and asylum seekers from travelling from the Libyan coast and putting human lives at risk.”

Kairidis said the EU’s primary focus should be to have more control over migrant flows from north Africa. “Instead, we endure days of attacks against Frontex, Europe and Greece, often by the usual suspects who have a political agenda,” he added.

On Athens’ investigation into the Greek coastguard’s role in the accident, Kairidis stressed that it was “independent and in-depth” and that “there would be consequences” if it reveals any wrongdoing.

The ombudsman also announced that she would launch inquiries this autumn into how the European Commission monitored human rights in border management operations funded by the EU, and into the EU’s recent agreement on migration with Tunisia, which includes sending Tunis €105mn for border enforcement measures.

Leijtens took charge of Frontex in March promising to “restore trust” in an EU agency whose operations have been probed by the EU’s anti-fraud watchdog Olaf. Frontex’s new Dutch boss replaced an interim director who was herself named as a “person of concern” in an Olaf investigation.

Fabrice Leggeri, the last full-time director of the Warsaw-based agency, resigned last year during an Olaf investigation into whether Frontex knew about illegal “pushbacks” of migrants by coastguard authorities and failed to act on the information. Olaf also investigated claims of misconduct, including harassment, at Frontex during Leggeri’s tenure.

This story was updated on July 27 to reflect that the Adriana was first detected on the morning of June 13.