17 October 2016
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"Later this week in Brussels, EU leaders will be discussing forthcoming deals with a handful of African states.
With repressive regimes like Sudan demanding that the EU finance border controls, leaders appear increasingly willing to do almost anything to stop people from crossing the Mediterranean to reach Italy. Last November, Sudan’s foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandoursaid the EU should help pay to keep migrants from crossing its borders into Libya and Egypt.
A few months later, it sent the EU commission a wish list of demands. Sudan requested the EU pay for "computers, cameras, scanners, servers, cars, aircraft" at 17 crossing points along its borders under a programme that is part financed by the European Development Fund. "In principle yes but aircraft unlikely," responded the commission, in a document that can be found on the commission's website.
"The EU is in essence providing these repressive regimes with a cloak of international legitimacy at a time when more scrutiny on their domestic policies is needed," wrote Kloe Tricot O'Farrell, the NGO's EU advocacy officer."
See: EU-Africa talks pose questions on aid and security (euobserver, link)
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