A senior Italian minister has accused Frontex, the EU border agency, of creating a “misleading controversy” for political purposes after it accused aid groups such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) of colluding with migrant-traffickers.

Mario Giro, Italy’s deputy foreign minister, said the recent allegation by Frontex – which suggested that aid groups were indirectly supporting criminal traffickers – showed a fundamental misunderstanding of so-called “push” and “pull” factors that are encouraging hundreds of thousands of people from Africa and the Middle East to leave their homes and make the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe.

“First, I don’t believe the NGOs are in contact with smugglers. This is a misleading controversy being used for internal purposes. I know the NGOs don’t enter Libyan waters. That is a fact,” Giro said, adding that Frontex had no clear evidence to back its allegation.

His assessment was supported by Arjan Hehenkamp, the director general of MSF, who said that “increased rhetoric” about the life-saving role played by non-governmental organisations on the frontlines of the migration crisis represented an attempt to intimidate the groups and reduce financial support for them.

“If we were not present, we have no doubt that the flow of migrants would continue. It would either mean that they would drown in greater numbers or that commercial vessels would be doing [the rescues] … leading to more accidents,” Hehenkamp said.

He said some EU governments were trying to stem the rise of rightwing populism and control immigration by agreeing to the detention of migrants in inhumane conditions in Libya and seeking to cut search-and-rescue capabilities – measures that he described as “cold-blooded”.

A former head of the UK embassy in Benghazi, Joe Walker-Cousins, has suggested that as many as 1 million migrants are en route to Libya and Europe from countries across Africa.



Nearly 200,000 refugees and migrants have reached Italy since last year. While Italy used to be a country of transit, with thousands of migrants historically continuing the journey north to Germany and other countries, it has increasingly become a destination for migrants because of tougher border controls that stop them from leaving.

While the majority of sea rescues are being conducted by EU vessels, Frontex recently suggested that about 40% of rescues were conducted by NGOs.

Giro said the fact that NGOs are known to rescue migrants has not encouraged people to make the journey to Libya and across the Mediterranean. “When a mother puts her young child in a boat, there is no pull factor at all,” he said. Instead, Giro said, it was important to consider the push factors that are encouraging people to leave their home countries.

“We have a tendency to think they are leaving because of extreme poverty. This is not the case. The people who move are those who can afford to spend up to €7,000 [£6,000] – depending on where you come from – to make the journey,” he said. “The people who are coming are young, educated, and come from countries where development is taking off,” Giro said, pointing to Nigeria, Guinea and Ivory Coast.

A plan by the EU to back the UN-supported government in Libya and pay hundreds of millions of euros to try to prevent it from allowing migrants to leave has been condemned by groups such as MSF, which says migrants are suffering under inhumane conditions in the country’s detention centres, under the control of criminal militias.

“Nobody controls anything in Libya. We are not at the stage yet to control the smuggling market of people,” Giro said. “We hope that, at some time, it will be possible to enter detention camps with international organisations and alleviate the suffering of people who are tortured, to bring them out from the hands of the militias who are controlling this black market. But we are far away from this.”