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[Music]
welcome everybody um we're going to have
a talk by three people here it's an open
source investigation by Paul Wagner
Matias Monroy and Felix
wise and it's regarding a Libyan militia
and their toys with the
EU uh they did their investigations by a
very low budget open source
intelligence and U unveiled how this tbz
so the Tarak Ben zat organization
actually operates and uh with which
European actors actually that they
communicate and
operate that's I think the introduction
to our lecture please take the stage
gentlemen and have fun here thank
[Music]
[Applause]
you so I have to say I was not part of
the investigation but I'm very glad that
I can make a kind of introduction here
before Felix and Paul will present their
findings or the the way they did the
research I just want to explain a little
bit the system that the EU had been
installing since uh what they call the
migration crisis or what we call what we
would call the summer of res sy so when
many uh people were fleeing into the EU
20145 there had been harsh reactions by
the European Union to in future prevent
that and frontex played a role in that
and I will try to very briefly explain
this system so there are many
conventions in place that are
prohibiting to bring refugees back to
places where they are in whatever kind
of uh whatever for endangered I just
mentioned two important ones like the
Geneva Refugee convention and the
convention Against torture you can see a
quote here so the um the important uh
wording is like uh you are not allowed
to bring refugees uh to a place where
they are suffering like inhuman
treatment or serious human rights
violations this was I will not go to
into go into details was just to mention
them
and this is this also applies for
maritim Affairs and for search and
rescue s and I mentioned some some other
conventions here that are all
saying refugees or let's say people
people in distress that you get on board
after a search and rescue case had to be
brought to a place of safety so there
are several uh conventions saying that
most of them under the body of the
United Nations
an important Authority here is the IMO
the international maritim
organization and they had also
guidelines where they specify like dis
embarcation of people who were taken on
board um if uh they are refugees and
Asylum Seekers um should not take place
where they are at risk so serious harm
must be avoided so this was reaffirmed
in the recent years two times so the law
or the international conventions are
very clear on that and it's also very
clear that Libya is not not such a safe
of place uh such a um uh place of safety
and probably some of you remember what
uh cable of the German
Embassy uh a German Embassy from North
Africa said in
2017 that the camps in Libya the
migration camps are like concentration
camps and that was a German Diplomat
saying that and since that as we would
as we observe the conditions uh even uh
even
worse
so it's forbidden to bring people back
to Libya for captains and this also
applies for merchant vessels there had
been a case in Italy where a captain was
sentenced for such a push back so this
is the buring we use for that and also
the German criminal law is prohibited
this there is a section in the uh the
the criminal law um about
abandonment but this is still happening
so this is a German ship that was in
2015 from a Hamburg company
opck and they brought people um on the
merchant vessel uh back to
Libya but search and rescue organization
from the Civil Fleet don't do this so
they of course uh they obey the
international conventions and bring the
people to Europe where they are um much
safer than they are in North
Africa but this is something that the
European Union tried to undermine since
2015 and one of the efforts is to set in
place a European contact group on search
and rescue which is consisting of of all
the all the member states and Germany is
playing a big role in that they are
sending delegates from the ministry of
traffic from the foreign Ministry and
from the ministry of interior and also
Italy is very present there and what
they do is try to change the regulation
that I had been mentioned before and of
course they will not be able to change
the Geneva Refugee convention but they
might change uh for example technical
guidelines that the IMO the
international martim
organization um is uh recommending how
States should
deal uh with um with administration of
ships so for example there's the idea to
harmonize uh the technical requirements
that ships have to fulfill and this is a
practice practice that we have observed
in Italy that the authorities uh um use
lots of kinds of repression to keep the
Civil Fleet in uh in the h
so they call it discussions with the IMO
on the regulation we have to see what
will come out of that but one of the
recommendations is also that the uh
Refugee organization the the Civil Fleet
the search and rescue organizations will
be forced to collaborate more with the
police and make interrogations of
refugees that uh that they have taken on
board and this kind of
stuff but what was very important is
that the you started to build up a
so-called Libyan Coast Guard start so
you might remember after Gaddafi was
also bombed by NATO States um there was
a total breakdown of the state and Libya
didn't had a coast guard not at all
there was no such thing as a Libyan
Coast Guard at that time and so the idea
was if the EU and the member states are
uh if it's forbidden for them to push
back people to Libya to then uh to then
build up a coast guard that uh pulls the
people back
um to Libya and this is what they done
they paid like 60 million euro one
important thing is the notifying of the
Libyan Zar Zone this is a search and
rescue zone so these are international
waters and you see on the bottom this
Libyan Zar Zone this also didn't exist
before so all distress cases maritim
distress cases in that area were at that
time so before 2018 it was coordinated
by Italy and of course if the people
were taken on board in the Libyan Zar
Zone they had to be brought to
Italy but what they did what EU did or
Italy did with EU money was like install
also what they call a rescue
coordination Center this is mandatory if
you have a um search and rescue Zone
notified at the IMO you need a Marium
rescue coordination Center you have to
fulfill certain um safeguards uh stuff
like that so you have to um have to have
like a telephone connection internet you
have to somebody who is receiving calls
who speaks English
24/7 you have to have amb ambulances
ready so these are the um these are the
facts that you have to fulfill and also
surveyance equipment was bought to
control the
area and we tried to find out a little
bit more like okay what happened with
the money uh this is a question that has
been done with ask theu it's it's one of
the platforms like fra andad where you
can do like Freedom of Information
requests and you see the EU is not very
willing to explain where the money went
the 59 million
euro then we had been asking the EU
commission and the EU Council so these
are two important bodies uh on the EU
legislation or the um EU uh authorities
so we asked the commission okay you paid
uh 2017 you PA PA like um you started to
pay 60 million EUR to Italy to install a
maritim rescue coration center but many
C rescue organizations say this doesn't
exist so if we call them there is nobody
answering the phone or the persons are
not speaking English English so what did
you done with the money and the
commission was like we have no idea uh
if there is an mrcc or where it is that
was in
2021 then we asked the council the
council replied basically basically the
same so we have no idea then in the same
year it came out it didn't work um and
uh so they started to install a mobile
mrcc so they did another effort with uh
um like uh technology um communication
technology surveillance uh technology
then we uh asked like okay and where
will this so it was delivered um where
will this be installed and which
militias or um bodies in in Libya will
use it and they were like we don't know
discussions are still ongoing so we yet
still don't know uh where this thing is
operating there is another mission
operating from the EU in Libya which is
like a civil defense Mission and they
produced a handbook how to do uh search
and rescue and how to handle such a
maritim rescue coordination Center I
applied with Fen like could I could I
see this and and um they refused it
because uh it would undermine public
security if it would come out uh what is
written down in the handbook I mean um I
don't understand but uh this is the
politics so this is a uh paper that I
received with FR andad and here it shows
like the surveillance means that the
Italian Coast Guard is using for like
intelligence about being informed about
boats the interesting thing is here that
they mentioned the alarm phone that uh
in other aspect uh is very much
criminalized here you see like aial
Assets in the middle this is a frontex
plane and this is also another important
step of this Spector I had been uh
talking about or I want to to talk about
so Libya doesn't have any aerial assets
so they have no Air Force they have no
helicopters for the Coast Guard and this
is what uh since 2017 uh 2016 frontex
had been taking over this task and uh
they changed the regulation frontex was
allowed to acquire own planes and drones
and this is what they did so they spent
lots of money of their budget for this
aerial surveillance and they hand over
the information to the Libyan Coast
Guard to then uh go out and bring the
people back to Libya I wanted to know
more about the technical capacities of
the drones and planes so what is known
is that they have certain sensors on
board but it was reported or there was
the suspicion that they also have
communication intelligence so that they
are kind of monitoring satellite phones
uh that the people have on boat so to to
detect where the boats are located so if
you locate a satellite phone um you can
also uh locate the boat um frontex
replied with fra andad they have uh they
have not such a technology on board and
then I uh received a presentation from
airus which is operating ating the
drones for frontex so it's not frontex
drones it's abos drones um basically the
drones are from a from the Israeli M
military and they do say they have
communication intelligence uh sensors on
board so this is just to explain a
little bit uh how difficult it is to get
this
information and frontex says we are
really following uh um all all the legal
framework so we are not communicating
directly with the Libyan Coast Guard but
we do it with a maritim coordination
Center that we just had been installing
which is the back
door but it uh came out that frontex has
a direct or airus the the people that
are operating the drones have a direct
connection uh with the Libyan Coast
Guard via
WhatsApp and uh so I had been asking uh
frontex like to what extent uh they use
these direct channels and they say no we
don't use these direct channels but then
I received uh WhatsApp messages from
pronex so in many cases the text is
removed but what you can see here uh hi
hello how are you I'm the captain Libyan
Coast Guard good morning do you have
anything about immigrants who uh who
need help and this indicates very clear
it's not only in uh in Mayday distress
cases when they use this WhatsApp
Channel what they said uh on another
occasion so but it's really like uh
writing a WhatsApp hey we are ready
where should should we go what do you
think um and this is uh what's what had
been happening so one of the messages
here is from 14th of June in
2021 um where the uh this ship a
merchant vessel was
Triton uh um handed over people that
they took on board to the living Coast
Guard and this was coordinated by a
frontex aerial
asset I would end with
um uh another aspect so there had been
lots of criticism of the EU frontex
collaborating with the Libyan Coast
Guard and in 2019 the European
commission put in place a monitoring
mission on human rights to figure out do
all the um the financial contributions
given to the Libyan Coast Guard do they
meet International standards on human
rights and they said we have a third
party monitoring which means it's
probably a kind of a consulting company
doing it and uh
we were like okay um uh who is this uh
who is making this uh these this
monitoring and uh what about the reports
and the reply was a third monitor third
party monitoring system is in place and
we were like um a third time asking like
but what have these mechanisms uh found
so far and the reply was we have a
monitoring system in place so it's
really not clear if this monitoring
system system I mean in my opinion it's
[ __ ] anyway um what are the findings
uh these are parliamentarian questions
by the way so even the you Parliament is
not able to uh to get into that that was
just a brief introduction for the uh
open source in um open source
intelligence um investigation of Poland
Felix who would then
continue thank
[Applause]
[Music]
you
so um thanks to Matias you hopefully
kind of get an understanding what kind
of domestic and post-apocalyptic tools
the European Union has um installed in
the last couple of years just to keep
people on the move on distance so they
cannot reach any European Shore anymore
um maybe short introduction from our
side Paul and me we are coming from
Seawatch which is the sea rescue
organization which is active in the
central Mediterranean Sea since
2015 and right now in action with two
vessels the see watch 5 and Aurora and
our and also two aircraft seabo 1 and
seabo 2 um so what is Seawatch and why
do we have planes I mean we go straight
into the central m in Sea and first of
all um the rescue coordination centers
or state actors in particularly don't
work with us so this is also the reason
why we need to find boats in distress by
ourselves even when for example frontex
has found them several hours before and
on the other hand we are there for the
documentation of human rights violations
where we're going to dig deeper into
this um briefly so what you can see here
is the common migration route uh which
is the western part of Libya simply
because uh ladua is the closest European
Island so from Tripoli to ladua it takes
180 nautical miles which is on the
flimsy rubber dingi up to two days so it
makes completely sense for the European
Union to part partner up with political
leaders into the region um to stop
people on the move to just um reach um
lampedusa itself so because of this
impact um we for example see pullbacks
day by day and we see also border
violence um so now let's have a quick
look about the Allies that um partnered
up with the European Union in the
past
yeah
St please keep the distance don't shoot
at the
people so what you have seen here is um
the so-call Lian Coast Guard uh inside
the malti search and rescue um Zone um
hunting uh more or less uh wooden board
with 50 people on board they have shoot
it several times in the water to scare
the people um they tried to crash into
the boat so it capsized by himself so
they can intercept the people then they
were also throwing sticks metal ropes
and whatsoever on the people uh luckily
um people could Escape in this specific
case and found their way to uh
lampedusa um but this was a lucky shot
most of the times these um violent
attacks ends up in disasters and because
of that and especially also the
financing from the so-call Libyan Coast
Guard the equipping from the so-call
Libyan Coast Guard the aerial
surveillance um from frontex which is
guiding kind of um the So-Cal Lian Coast
Guard to the distress cases and
especially also um The Establishment for
the Libyan search and rescue Zone we do
really see an impact and a change of
migration route um so when we tell you
about the explanation or let's say the
profilation of of pullbacks we also mean
that they have become quite professional
in the past so all of the burden I would
would say was transferred um to Libyan
actors who um being installed as a
gatekeeper and can do what the European
Union is not allowed to do which is um
the pullback itself so um what the
European Union Tred to achieve is that
less people are reaching the European
Union what uh the current fascist
government in Italy is trying to achieve
is that no one is reaching Italy Shore
anymore but what they get um is that
people are being forced to search for
even more dangerous routs and for more
deadly routs and this is happening right
now in the eastern part of Libya uh
where Paul will give you like a um more
detailed version about
that um yeah hi everyone um so Felix
just told you a bit about our work and
uh Matias and Felix a bit how [ __ ] up
uh EU funded uh so-called Libyan Coast
Guard is acting in the western part of
the country but but there was or is
until this year a vacuum in the eastern
part of the country so I will be telling
you a bit more about the situation uh
that led to the rise of uh Tark Ben zad
Brigade the topic of today's talk uh in
the eastern part of Libya as a naval
actor so if you were to flee from
Eastern Libya uh toook or
Bazi uh for example uh from cities in
the East uh the route was always kind of
a bit dis different than the Western
route from Tripoli because uh there is
uh the MTI search and rescue Zone but
Malta has since quite a while abandoned
on sea rescue so people would either
make it to Italy very rarely to Malta or
die but uh they normally wouldn't be
intercepted so um this was all taking
place in what we frame as the Z free
route which is the route of Eastern
Libya and um what we often observe is
also the boats were different or are
different uh so they are very large
fishing vessels from a rescue
perspective they are really a
catastrophe because if they capsize
there's a lot of people that is going to
going to die and I guess a classic Zar
free departure that is in everyone's
mind is the pulos
Shipwreck so
um these kinds of boat boats
um but pulos as we will see later was
already a case that was a bit different
from the cases beforehand because Tark
benad was already involved in pulos and
um Malta would be normally the
responsible Authority but uh as I said
they mostly ignore distress calls but
also our calls so when we call them they
just hang up uh so they would be uh
normally obliged to rescue but what they
do is really dodgy Stu stuff uh which
you wouldn't believe the European
government's doing so they sent in they
would never like uh say who they are uh
when they come on onto a rescue uh scene
they come they hand out life jackets
they go away or um just uh ask Merchant
vessels to refuel uh people in distress
in heavily overcrowed boats hoping that
would they would make it to Italy and
not come to Malta um so this kind of
dodgy behavior and obviously this is a
clear violation of the law of uh the
Seas and uh their duty to rescue so
um it was and is uh it was always a
problem for Malta that there were no
interceptions and also for Italy because
more people arrived so I want to Quick
you quickly show you two audio Snippets
that kind of proed this um the first one
is comes between uh our um monitoring
airplane seabird and emerging vess
called fmt
OA fmt um please uh confirm that I might
advised you to go to the district case
and uh prepare some fuel
okay yes that is correct ma'am uh RCC
Malta advised us to proceed to position
and adise us to supply fuel to the
fishing
boat I hope you all got it I don't have
subtitles sound is very shitty so uh fmt
just confirmed that yes RCC Malta said
we are going to refuel the distress case
um so um in this case for example they
got rescued by an Italian ship and went
to Italy so Malta was
successful um uh but nobody died luckily
and then uh another call which is that
from our um early officer so ground
personal to the RCC and it's rare
because they answer the phone normally
they would just like hear a seabird
calling and then they would just hang up
and then you try several time they would
directly hang up so they answered in
this case but uh let's see what they
said yes um kindly uh send us an email
if you want to give us some information
okay I've already sent you an I've
already sent you an email sir okay we
have received it okay thank I would also
like to talk to you about what's going
on about this case sir we we I'm very
sorry we don't speak with ngos you don't
you don't speak with NGS why don't you
do
that then then the call ended so um yeah
that's uh just to show you malta's
behavior and uh just to be clear people
die because of this and
um so to summarize what was always
bothering the EU Malta and Italy
specifically there were no interceptions
in the eastern part of Libya so now
because the Western route as we saw is
super dangerous uh people on the Move
divert their routs to uh either Tunisia
or Eastern Libya and
uh these two Graphics show this a bit uh
sorry I I forgot about this one these
are the life jacket handouts of uh
unidentifiable malti boats and these two
Graphics explain a bit how the rise uh
of boats uh happened so you see far more
boats in 2023 this Graphics is made from
our incredible nice doc team uh shout
out to them and um then another uh
Graphics uh shows that the amount of
people also that's the dark blue chart
uh really uh got high that's because
little boats uh Rose but the boats are
super packed so 700 800 people so if you
have 10 of them already a lot um
so
um to uh explain you a bit how our
lovely Brigade that we will introduce uh
very shortly uh came into being I will
just give you a very quick introduction
to the political situation in eastern
Libya upper left corner is daa uh he's
the normal friend of the EU and uh un
government and then uh to the right we
have lovely khif haar and uh he used to
be really a persona non grata nobody
would meet him ever he's convicted war
criminal in the US used to work uh for
very long time for the CIA weirdly
enough is US citizen is cooperating with
the Wagner group a lot and uh yeah he's
not like the really nice guy um and uh
this year for the first time we saw EU
officials meeting with him so milone met
with him in May if I remember rightfully
uh multis of official officials met with
him and panad DOI the interior minister
of uh Italy openly said uh he's looking
forward or hoping for good cooperation
to hinder migration with him and um so
he has a son Sadam haa and his son has a
[Music]
militia second one more
[Music]
time
yeah
um these very nice guys there uh are
super notorious uh in eastern Libya for
the extra judicial killings for torture
amnesty wrote a whole catalog of the
horrors and
um uh they part of uh parts of them are
salafi groups of uh matali origin but
that's just a side note so they are kind
of also cooperating with the East but
the main thing is as you see with their
beautiful cars they were mainly
landbased until this year and
um now we were the first to see them at
Sea um that's their vessel which uh has
the same name Tar Ben zad and um we also
saw for the first time how they
intercepted um these big fishing vessels
and
um their um maritim crew is mostly uh
Southeast Asian judging from the accent
and we also um
investigated a bit like we basically we
googled uh the ship and uh found um that
it was produced um from uh volume United
Arab Emirates based company and
um judging from the technicalities this
ship isn't made to petrol so it can't
petrol it's really made to um go for one
specific Place very fast it's super
modern and go back um so well the
operating crew is a hired crew for uh
the the militias are on board and uh
it's based in Bazi and
um
so just next slide sorry um to come to
the political context um European
officials uh were as I said meeting with
haa and um they were openly talking
about their hopes to call operate and um
just to give you like there's this
disgusting recycling system and uh tbz
for example was part was involved in the
pulos ship break so they were um the
persons at the airport um guiding the
people to the boats so there were people
that got intercepted beforehand uh on a
big fishing vessel brought back to shore
then they had to pay ransoms free to
fight ,000 refugees in prisoned they had
to pay ransoms then they went on the
second boat and the second boat was uh
then the pulos shipwreck in which 700
plus people died and um so tbz is really
like a classic militia group they have a
magic uh business model they uh send
people out uh let them pay for that then
they intercept them then they get Ransom
from them then they send them out again
let them pay for that again so um we uh
have no proof whether this is fully
coordinated by the EU but for sure
there's some cooperation going on and um
refugees in the hands of tbz are heavily
tortured they are shot next to their
heads we have heard interviews with
people that have been on the vessels uh
uh on the vessel that we observe from
the sky and uh it's really
horrific and um Felix will show us now
uh how they cooperate with the U on an
operation level uh to find people in
distress and uh on the ex on the example
of one specific
case so yeah thank you very much uh what
you see here um are all the are three
departures that we monitored in 2023
either with our airplanes or together
with other Nos and especially also with
the alarm phone and it may look a little
bit dry or boring in the beginning but
what you will see here are all the blue
dots are basically the stress cases and
the red dots um are um TB set
interceptions and what you see here
which is um quite remarkable in the
beginning is that they're entering the
malti search and rescue Zone whenever
they want and so they simply don't care
about the um stuff that Matias for
example told you before and they are
also operating really far away from Bazi
which led to the question how is it
possible that they're going to find
these boats without aerial surveillance
because for example our vessels seawat 3
Seawatch 5 I mean they're patrolling in
a specific area but in the end of the
day U we need our own airplanes um to
find boats so we had a lot of questions
uh the first spotting um was on the 7th
of June this year um it's a fancy boat
it's kind of brand new uh because of the
registration number which is written on
the deck uh from the board it was quite
easy for us to also have a deeper look
into history um The Vessel was sailing
next to India as Paul said it's coming
from volume which is an UAE based
company and it's a um offshore supply
vessel which is capable to carry a lot
of persons uh while they are not um able
to patrol because of the tiny Fuel and
freshwater tanks um but uh let's go
straight into one remarkable um case
which happened on the 27th of June um
what you see here is interception again
inside in the MTI search and rescue area
you see a wooden boat with up to 400
persons and why is this so important for
us simply because we just gathered a lot
of information to seriously prove um
that frontex was involved in the
guidance and the coordination of this so
um the stuff that we are going to use
day by day are especially the Zar
boundaries like the search and rescue
area boundaries uh we are receiving
alarm phone informations we're going to
check check um the merchant vessel
tracks uh we're going to use our own
Airborne operations we call the rescue
coordination centers um in Tripoli in
Malta and in uh Rome and also our
contacts that we gathered in Benghazi
and of course we're going to use
airplane tracks either from frontex or
from other state
actors so because of that we established
a quite powerful Tool uh which is
helping us to go really deep into
specific dates and also the specific uh
stress cases because in the end of the
year for example we collected more than
2,000 boats in the stress only from um
2023 uh so now let's have a deeper look
27th of June uh what we did here is that
we monitor the frontex activities so
we're going to use public information
which is available on flight radar we're
going to use adsb exchange which is the
transmission signal that um smaller
aircrafts need to carry on and we also
have our own antennas which are
installed in lampedusa and whenever
frontex for example is doing a weird
maneuver like an anomalia or like an
orbit uh it gives us an indicator
especially here so frontex lowered the
altitude they were circling for quite a
while about something made of their
interests which is then um the reason
why we're going to start our Airborne
operation and check it out because here
again when we for example would call the
rescue coordination centers or if we
would call fonex and tell them Hey
listen we have seen on radar there might
be something interesting they just
simply don't talk to us so um when we
received um this information here again
we started our Airborne operation and
flew to the last long position but we
could not find any distress case anymore
what we have witnessed was an
interception by the tar pet militia um
who had seriously no idea what they
doing so we um just asked the captain
because it was the first encounter ship
uh where we basically have spotted them
in an action and this is how the captain
responded to
ustion I can see that closing in the
dist pleas intention
please have to and we have to
IM have
yeah this is well you got authorization
Froman government to perform the
interception so um what you clearly can
see here is that the captain from the
tar benj had no idea where he was uh on
the other hand Paul also proved before
that uh most likely the maritime crew is
not coming from the militia itself it's
mainly hired and uh we ask for more
informations about that because we also
really wondered how is it possible that
you're going to find a board in distress
so far away from your home country or
like your home port and the captain
handed over a number from Mr Abdullah
which never really happens uh so we
called Mr Abdullah and Mr Abdullah is
working uh for the Libyan government in
eastern part as a translator and we just
asked him like how is it possible did
you going to find these boats uh where
was the information coming and he again
have in mind that we still have this fex
track which gives us an indicator and
this is what Mr Abdullah told us via
phone
call message the call was from 2 from
ospray 2 okay yes so ospray 2 the
aircraft from
frontex yes yes called the T Ben and
told them about a boat in District
yes so basically the mure itself proved
that they received the coordinations and
the information from frontex so let's
bring all these informations together um
and have a deeper look into our
reconstruction tool you will see here
the movement of merchant vessel tracks
which would act differently if for
example fonex would have sent out a med
relay you see the Ada speed track from
frontex itself and you see the last non
position and the orange line is the Zar
boundary from the Libyan search and
rescue Zone to the malti search and
rescue zone so here really early in the
morning frontex found the boat um
diverted then back to
South couple of hours
later we then also started our own
Airborne operation to check out went to
the last known position which was still
in Libyan search and rescue area went up
to the north could not found the
distress case and then uh were able to C
the interception and with this
information we are going straight to
press uh because this is something that
we need to make public uh this is I'm
Hal interested about Civil Society in
general and in this particular case we
partnered up with lios reports spegel
and Al jaaz who also then brought all
these puzzle pieces into the into one so
let's have a
look
and especially the merchant vessel
tracks gives you quite an indicator
because here again if fex for example
would have sent out a ma relay which is
an emergency signal on um Public
Communication there would be an at least
tiny different track from the merchant
vessel so it means a fonex have never
sent aom relay or B the merchant vessel
was um straight released by the rescue
coordination Center for Malta both could
be possible um another case which is I
think a little bit more clear happened
on the 2nd of August uh in the morning
our friends from Open Arms which is a
spanish-based rescue organization has
overheard uh radio communication from an
undent an unknown aircraft who basically
guided the tar benay uh to um something
out of interests um so um open arms were
sending out these information straight
to us and we then also started our
Airborne operation flew to the last non
position and this is what we
found
[Music]
I have position for you want the
position 33421 729 33420 1729 you are
looking for something I give you the
position 33420
1729 Ming you can tell me when
you
so what is really interesting here I
mean first of all you have the malti
accent Al jaaz proved that the pilot was
coming from Malta
second of all this is a typical behavior
from armed forces of Malta that they
never identify themselves so they're not
handing out their call sign they
unvisible on these public informations
um but on the other hand there's Malta
radar which is also tracking uh State
actors whenever they leave Malta or
whenever they come back to Malta and two
aircrafts were active these days um
heading south in the early of the
morning and just a couple of hours later
after we have found the interception
they were also going north and
and this time we could create a lot of
pressure together with the press and
what was interesting here is that Mala
did not deny that they co-worked with
this actor first of all they called them
Benghazi Coast Guard which is absolutely
completely wrong and second of all they
said something [ __ ] um that they're
cooperating with every actor in the
vicinity who is capable to rescue
persons in
distress um I
mean just to be clear um since the
beginning of Seawatch almost 30,000 uh
people have drowned in the central
Mediteranean sea these are dark figures
so these are only numbers that are got
ricated either by NOS or by un united
nation operations there are a lot of
boats a lot of people who are drowned
without going in any contact with any
Authority uh so it's way higher and the
only European answer that we receive for
years and day by day is more border
violence it's a support now with
militias and when you have a deeper look
in T Ben it's now also the cooperation
with Warlords and because of that and
this is something that is needs to be
really clear on this uh we are dealing
right now with the most deadly year
since 2017 so almost 3,000 persons have
drowned this year while they try to
cross the Mediterranean Sea because of
these implications and another thing and
this is quite important to understand is
that we also use open source
intelligence so we get a lot of
information from Twitter Twitter we get
a lot of information from Snapchat um
Facebook groups and especially also Tik
toks because these people are also
present themself and the video that you
have seen was not edited by us this is
how they want to be seen also in the
outside world and it's quite outrageous
and it's also really worrying um but in
the end um it gives us an idea what kind
of partner the European Union is search
for because um what do you think are
these militias are doing when they have
intercepted persons and dragging people
against their will back to
[Music]
Libya yes indeed they're doing [ __ ]
barbecue um so thank you very much um as
again said um we are presenting a lot of
NOS today not only Seawatch this is a
Cooperative partner up especially also
um with um lighthous reports and um with
alarm phone so thank you very
[Applause]
[Music]
much
thank you uh I guess we have some
questions here please take your mic
thank you uh Paul Wagner Maas
horn Felix wi um who has a question oh
yes signal angel please go thank you um
we are wondering in the online community
um whether China has a has a part in
this region and if so um how are they
involved no clue we have no idea I mean
what we know for sure is that the
eastern part of Libya is partnering up
with Russia and there were a lot of
Wagner activities in the past and I mean
Libya is a battlefield so on the east
western part you have turkey you have
the European Union you have Italy um who
is trying to get more access to um
specific kind of involvements and on the
eastern part you have Egypt and
especially also Russia but uh with China
we have no
idea I was thinking whether China hasn't
had uh there were this there was this
catastrophe in Dara and there were quite
some International but there was I mean
even Germany like everyone sent kind of
help but that's the last time I read
anything about China in Libya I think
one is one interesting thing is that uh
China sent armed drones to haa that must
have been uh in 2019 or something when
the Civil War erupted again and there
was a very interesting drone war that
was before the that started in the
Ukraine when the western part of the
government was equipped by Turkish arm
armed drones and the eastern part by
Chinese uh armed drones so I'm talking
about the really huge ones so not the
quadrocopter kind of
stuff can we go to number one here
please yeah thanks for your talk um do
you know whether it's technically
possible to locate um satellite
telephones toas for the um European um
coast
guards yes that's possible there already
did um there was one um major shipwreck
uh which all of that started which was
happening in 2013 so a big boat capsized
in front of lampedusa and then a couple
of weeks later another big boat capsized
in front of Mal
which was the reason why the European
Union has established at least for one
year uh sea rescue operation the mar
nostrom and later journalists found out
that um they sneaked in into Tara
communication from persons on the Move
um who were basically drowned um then a
couple of hours later so it's
technically possible to get access to
toones yes because because from
Communications with them they often deny
that they are capable of doing this do
you have maybe like sources like
um technical information um that can
prove that they are capable of do doing
this I mean you already mentioned um
like public sources I mean in terms of
detection uh frontex said very clear
that the cotona Shipwreck uh they found
out that the The Vessel was somewhere by
detection of satellite phones but it's
not clear if the technology was on board
of an aerial asset so a plane because uh
it could also be satellite based because
frontex U is also since 200 21 using uh
satellite detection from space by uh
hawy 30 360 which is a
company I forgot where it's based could
be Israel um it's one of the companies
uh that is operating these uh small cube
satellites um and they are one of the
first customers of that company and I
think the contract is also at least once
uh that was a oneyear contract prolonged
but this is about detection so it's not
about interception and I also doubt that
frontex is interesting in listening to
the calls of migrants on boats because
that's not the task of frontex they
don't do law enforcement that would be
for example europool that might be
interested to intercept the Cs with uh
what they call C or something but this
is uh this is one of the
proofs all right can we go to number
four please thanks um yeah thank you for
your talk that was all extremely
depressing and uh we're seeing fascism
rising in Europe at the moment uh quite
a lot so what would you your tips or
what's your idea what can one
do what do you need what can one do I
mean we need money for sure
and that's always the the easiest
solution because uh seatch and also the
other organizations are running by uh
fundings and on the other hand I mean
what we have seen right now also with
GEOS uh is um a massive massive massive
massive [ __ ] show when it comes to
migration policies uh which is also kind
of invisible for civil society so I
think right now it is really important
to still create awareness about the
situation in the central Mediterranean
Sea no one really cares I'm how much
people are drowning day by day or year
by year and this topic quite often gets
um completely lost in media debates so
for us it is really important to keep
the attention high and also to n down
what fonex and also State actors are
doing um with this specific uh
electronic and Technology um day by day
but as again supporting C rescue NGO
supporting the alarm phone creating
awareness um is already quite a powerful
tool for us but also just organize fight
protest take the
streets like we are just an
[Applause]
NGO let me just add um Felix mentioned
the Cs uh package so the so-called
migration and Asylum package that the
EU uh Parliament and Council agreed upon
uh in uh two weeks before and the next
step will be to criminalize all the
helpers of migrants and there is another
package on the way that was already
presented by the European commission
which is targeting on what they call
human Smugglers but it contains also
certain paragraphs uh that uh could
adapt to civil rescue
organizations and these uh kind of
packages could Al could even be be worse
the council dealt with it and when they
end up in the Parliament that they have
to decide upon and normally in the
parliament is not a fireb for civil
rights it's the opposite so we we saw
that clearly on the Cs
regulation so help where we can please
uh number two you have
questionis thank you for the talk um I
was wondering if uh is there any way um
to get in contact or educate or let
people know that are on the move um
about how to get in contact with you I
mean it seemed like you have the problem
that sometimes frontex knows about the
stress colds before you could you or are
you doing anything to try to be the I
know address for people on the move or
is is that even feasible in any way uh
unfortunately it's super dangerous for
us uh because we are not a state and C
rescue is a state um thing so we need to
cooperate with the rescue coordination
centers uh whenever they also don't go
in contact with us so for example when
uh the alarm phone is receiving the
stress call they also have to inform the
rescue coordination centers while also
putting the NGS in CC um so this is a
super valid information but we cannot go
straight into contact with persons on
the Move um because that could
criminalize us
heavily why would that why would that
criminalize you because it's a it's a
state responsibility your responsibility
okay thank you fine um one more question
here number one so uh in the case of
these uh militias in the past uh there
were reports for example from the
Seawatch uh from rece watchat vestel
that the so-called uh Libyan Coast Guard
threatened to open fire upon Rescuers
especially NGS and my question would be
how dangerous do you assess the
situation with these militias roaming
the Seas when actual NOS try to save
these people how dangerous is it for the
NGS to rescue people if their militias
roaming
around yeah it's a good question I mean
we are partnering up with different kind
of security um companies who have more
details about um what kind of weapons
are being installed on the Libyan coard
vs and so on so for example um Libyan
Coast Guard is carrying um kalashnikovs
and different kind of other automatic
rifles which are not capable to shut
down an aircraft um does don't mean
anything we don't go super close to this
actor anyway uh but it means that we
cannot stay there forever um and I think
I mean while the So-Cal living Coast
Guard still receives a lot of money uh
from the European Union they would be
really really stupid if they would for
example kill an NGO member with t benjay
seriously no idea they are incredibly
dangerous they have no idea what they're
doing um when you have a deeper look
about what's going on in the eastern
part of Libya they are completely out of
control so also when we are receive
information that these actors is in the
vicinity uh we also send out an alarming
message to all the other NGO vessels to
don't go super close to this but it also
happened already that I mean if I
remember rightfully that we have been
threatened with surface to
ails yeah I mean so uh I guess that
that's a real danger because you can
have your security firms that evaluate
stuff for you but then you're still
facing individuals that sometimes saying
yeah we are in Li you go out of Libyan
territory while we are clearly in
international waters so that don't even
know where they are
like we take one more question for
number four um it's it's not a question
um I have a lot of rage in me every time
I listen to the kind of
of what what you all NOS are doing you
are modern Heroes thank you very
[Applause]
much thank you I would love to um yeah
hear some more about this uh news but
next next Congress probably will get the
new update I hope it will be better
thanks again for Paul Wagner Matas honro
and Felix
wiise
[Music]