Europe supports, finances and is directly involved in clandestine operations in North African countries to dump tens of thousands of Black people in the desert or remote areas each year to prevent them from coming to the EU.
[…] Europe knowingly funds, and in some instances is directly involved in systematic racial profiling detention and expulsion of Black communities across at least three North African countries […] In Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia, refugees and migrant workers, some of whom were on their way towards Europe, as well as people who had legal status and established livelihoods in these countries, are apprehended based on the colour of their skin, loaded onto buses and driven to the middle of nowhere, often arid desert areas.
In 2019, the EU inked a deal to provide nearly 20 million euros’ (about $21.4 million) worth of radar, undersea and airborne drones, radios and other technology, as well as training, to the government of Tunisia […] Over the past decade, the EU has struck similar deals — exchanging hundreds of millions of euros worth of surveillance technology, other police equipment and accompanying training — with nearly every non-EU country that borders the bloc. At the center of these deals is the International Centre for Migration Policy Development, an innocuous-sounding international organization based in Vienna that has become one of the bloc’s go-to intermediaries for supplying surveillance equipment and training to police and coast guards in countries bordering the EU.
[…] “The EU is breaking its own rules and values with the border regime we have built up: They partner with autocratic regimes and provide them with technology to use in the Mediterranean to keep people out,” said Ozlem Demirel, a member of the European Parliament from Germany. Demirel pointed to the ICMPD as an example of efforts by the European Commission to carry out this work with as little scrutiny as possible.
These are just two investigation by external researchers. I would really be curious to read what the EU found. Did Ms. von der Leyen comment on why the Commission is hiding its findings?
Desert Dumps (May 2024) – [Archived]
How an EU-funded agency is working to keep migrants from reaching Europe (May 2023) – [Archived]
These are just two investigation by external researchers. I would really be curious to read what the EU found. Did Ms. von der Leyen comment on why the Commission is hiding its findings?