LONDON

The European Union’s border agency, Frontex, and Malta are "systematically sharing the coordinates of refugee boats" trying to escape Libya with a vessel operated by a militia group, a report said Monday. 
The report, published by Lighthouse Reports, said Frontex and the Maltese government are sharing the information with a vessel operated by the Tareq Bin Zeyad (TBZ) militia group. 

"The group has been operating a vessel, also called TBZ, in the Central Mediterranean since May, during which it has intercepted more than 1,000 people at sea off the coasts of Libya and Malta and returned them to Libya," it noted.

Experts say the militia would not have been able to find the refugee boats without help from surveillance planes, said the report, which was co-published with Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Malta Today, Al Jazeera and the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism Association (SIRAJ).

Analyzing several interceptions carried out by the TBZ boat in Maltese waters, the report said these are known as "pullbacks" and are illegal according to maritime experts.

Sharing how they obtained information, the study added that both Frontex and Malta say their aim when sharing the coordinates is to help people in distress.

"However, in all of the cases we analyzed, there were safer options: merchant ships were sailing nearby -– much closer than the TBZ ship – and NGO vessels or the Maltese or Italian coast guards could have assisted," it added.