Migrant rescue group accuses EU border agency of conspiracy

A Spanish NGO has accused the EU's border control agency Frontex of plotting to discredit private aid organisations in order to put off donors.

Allegations by Frontex that donor-funded rescue vessels may have colluded with traffickers at the end of last year prompted Italian prosecutors to begin an informal investigation into their funding sources.

"The declarations by Frontex and political authorities are intended to discredit our actions and erode our donors' trust," Proactiva Open Arms head Riccardo Gatti said.

"They are trying to say that we support the smuggling or the traffickers themselves," he added.

Proactiva Open Arms has been rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean since 2016. Nearly 25,000 migrants have been pulled to safety and brought to Italy since the beginning of the year in a sharp increase in arrivals.

The organisation has heavily criticised a deal signed in February between Italy and Libya which purportedly hopes to stem the flow of migrants from the coast of North Africa to Italy.

In a report cited in December by the Financial Times daily newspaper, Frontex raised the possibility that traffickers were putting migrants out to sea in collusion with the private ships that recover them and bring them to Italy "like taxis".

Prosecutors then publicly wondered at the amount of money being spent, though they stopped short of opening a formal probe.

"We feel there's someone who wants to put a spoke in our wheels, though we do not really know who is behind it," Gatti said.

The organisation said it had nothing to hide.