"The EU pays warlords to stop migration"

Sally Hayden (Dublin, 1989) has given voice to hundreds of refugees who were locked up in Libyan detention centers in her book When I Tried It the Fourth Time, We Drowned (Captain Swing), winner of the Orwell Prize for political literature 2022. The Irish journalist specialized in migration describes a system full of abuses, in which the European Union is a participant, in its effort to stop the arrival of people to Europe.

What consequences have there been when the EU committed in 2017 to pay 100 million euros to the Libyan coast guard to control boats with refugees?

My book has been used as evidence in a complaint filed with the International Criminal Court to have senior European officials investigated for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Many Europeans do not realize that the EU is so involved and think that their role is more of inaction, when in reality we are playing a very active role in sending people to these detention centers and under these conditions.

What conditions?

All types of abuses: hunger, medical negligence, torture, sexual violence, death of people and murders.

And a large extortion system, you explain in the book.

The refugees arrive in Libya and are held there and tortured for ransom. And they think they are paying to get to Europe, but in reality they are just paying so they don’t get killed. Meron Estefanos, an Eritrean journalist, estimated more than two years ago that traffickers could have made a billion dollars. I have talked to people who paid $5,000 and others who paid up to $30,000. Some even paid several times over, for each smuggler they had been sold to.

You have said that the EU is evading international law. In what sense?

A European ship cannot return people to Libya because their lives are in danger there, but a Libyan ship can. The EU has been monitoring the Mediterranean with its drones, helicopters and planes to detect refugee boats, and then give that information to the Libyan Coast Guard. It has also supported the Libyan coast guard with equipment and training to intercept and force people to return to Libya. As a result, since 2017, almost 130,000 people have been returned to this country through this system.

Now the EU and Spain will finance Mauritania to stop the canoes that arrive in the Canary Islands. How will the measure affect?

The EU spends huge sums of money trying to stop people from coming to Europe, but it spends it in ways that prop up systems that further oppress people. They increase securitization and prop up militias, warlords or dictators. And that ends up destabilizing the situation even more because it oppresses people even more and increases the reasons that force them to flee. It is important to examine how money is spent.

Is Sudan an example?

Yes, in Sudan it was said that the Rapid Support Forces (FAR) had been strengthened by EU anti-immigration funding to protect the border with Libya and prevent people from migrating. And now the FAR has gone to war and more than seven million people are displaced, more than a million of them, outside the border. In Tunisia in August, I met people who came from Darfur and they told me that a new genocide was taking place, that the FAR was killing people, raping women and burning villages. This is an example of how trying to stop migration at all costs can embolden groups who then start war.

What is your opinion of the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum?

We live in a crisis of global inequality. We find ourselves in a situation where a huge population of the world has no way to travel legally. He cannot board planes or access visas. And that is not going to disappear with a hardening of borders. Much of the political rhetoric has strayed far from the real human consequences of these policies. The voices of the affected people are not heard.

Do you have hopes for the next European elections?

I have spoken to many European politicians. They tell me they are worried about a shift to the far right and that they need to get tough on immigration to counter it. And I wonder: Doesn’t one become extreme right by saying that it is necessary to adopt extreme right policies to counteract the extreme right?

In his book he also criticizes the role of UN agencies.

Many of my sources who worked for the UN felt they were being used to whitewash EU policy in Libya. They were not allowed to criticize the EU. The same fund that financed the Libyan Coast Guard also financed UNHCR and the IOM. European officials said they were trying to improve the situation in detention centers by supporting the UN to work there. Meanwhile, in its drive to obtain funding, the UN disguised the situation within the centers.

Are you still in contact with the refugees?

Many of the people who contacted me have arrived in Europe and I have met them. They usually have jobs, they are learning languages, they had babies, they got married… they can finally move on with their lives. But there are others who are still in Libya and are having a hard time, although they are no longer in the centers. I lost contact with others and I suspect they are not well. This is the sad thing about these migratory routes: if someone dies, it is not recorded, they will never tell their families. Life loses so much value. It is awful.