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The journalism consortium "Lighthouse Reports," in a report prepared in collaboration with media outlets including France's Le Monde and the American Washington Post, accused the European Union of providing funding, support, and direct involvement in covert operations conducted by North African countries, including Mauritania. These operations involve relocating tens of thousands of Black people and abandoning them in the desert or remote areas annually to prevent their entry into Europe.
The report emphasizes that a "system of mass displacement is operated with funds, vehicles, equipment, intelligence, and security forces provided by the European Union and European countries."
It further stated that refugees and migrants in Morocco, Mauritania, and Tunisia "are arrested based on their skin color, loaded into buses, and transported to remote locations, often arid desert areas without water or food," according to the report.
The report also mentioned that other migrants "were taken to border areas where authorities have been accused of selling them to human traffickers and gangs who torture them for ransom."
In the first official European response to the controversial report, Eric Mamer, spokesman for the European Commission, merely stated that "the situation is difficult, it is rapidly evolving, and we will continue to work on it."
The European Union had concluded cooperation agreements with the three countries "that clearly include funding to enhance their capacity to reduce irregular migration to Europe."
The EU's funding to the three countries aimed at reducing irregular migration included: 150 million euros for Tunisia, 210 million euros for Mauritania, and 624 million euros for Morocco, according to agreements signed in recent months.
Source :
madar.mr
