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Paul Wagner, Matthias Monroy and Felix Weiss
2023, Tariq Ben Zeyad Brigade (TBZ), a notorious East Libyan land-based militia, went maritime and completed the pullback regime which was installed by Italy and the EU from 2017. They were deeply involved in the failed passage of the boat that sank near Pylos, in which up to 500 people drowned. With the help of low-budget, open-source intelligence, we were the first to unveil how their new vessel operates in the Central Mediterranean and with which European actors they communicate. This talk provides you with the details.
After the "summer of migration", from 2017 the EU and Italy set up and equipped the "coastguard" in Libya, consisting of militias, to take back boats with refugees to North Africa and put the people in torture camps. Frontex and a EU military mission take over the aerial surveillance for these pullbacks. 2023, Tariq Ben Zeyad Brigade (TBZ), a notorious East Libyan land-based militia, went maritime and completed this pullback regime. They were deeply involved in the failed passage of the boat that sank near Pylos, in which up to 500 people drowned. For the first time, we unveiled how their new vessel, sponsored by UAE, operates in the Central Mediterranean. We could spot them, intercept communication, and record their crimes. We managed to do so through low-budget, open-source intelligence, voluntary work, and our civil monitoring flights. Our talk materializes at the crossroads of no-border activist nerdiness and broader geopolitical reflections. Starting with our first-hand material, we show TBZ's close ties with condemned war criminals, the smuggling business, the United Arab Emirates, the Frontex agency, and European governments, namely Greece, Italy, and Malta. We see the media being barely interested in the intricacies of Europe's proxy actors, such as TBZ, that help uphold fortress Europe. We will use CCC to discuss what has little space in our daily public work: weird details, daring predictions, and complex interlinkages.
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