In yet another instance of illegal pushbacks, 79 irregular migrants were abandoned in the waters between Türkiye and Greece and later rescued by the Turkish coast guard in two separate incidents, the Coast Guard Command said in a statement Tuesday.

Some 44 migrants on a life raft off the coast of the Marmaris district in Muğla province were saved after being pushed into Turkish territorial waters by Greek forces.

Coast guard crews headed to the region after they were informed that there was a group of migrants on two life rafts, according to the statement. The migrants were brought to Marmaris Pier and handed over to the provincial directorate of the Presidency of Migration Management after procedures. Meanwhile, 35 irregular migrants pushed into Turkish territorial waters by Greek forces were rescued off the coast of Ayvalık district in Balıkesir province. The coast guard’s TCSG-907 boat was assigned to the region upon receiving information that a group of migrants had been pushed back. The migrants were sent to the provincial directorate of the Presidency of Migration Management following proper procedures.

Greece has long been under fire for its illegal, often inhumane and sometimes deadly practice of pushback – summary deportations of migrants without allowing them to apply for asylum. The Greek government denies all allegations, despite claims to the contrary from alleged victims, rights groups, footage from Turkish drones and even statements from the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.

"In Greece, pushbacks at land and sea borders have become the de facto general policy," the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe Gonzalez Morales, said last year. Similarly, many in the international community, including Türkiye, which attracts illegal migrants worldwide for being a key gateway to Europe, have frequently condemned the practice as a violation of humanitarian values and international law for endangering the lives of vulnerable migrants.

While the Turkish coast guard has rescued thousands sent back by Greek authorities, countless others died at sea as boats full of refugees sank or capsized, especially in the Aegean Sea. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) recorded nearly 2,000 migrants dead or missing in the Mediterranean Sea last year. A report by Türkiye’s Ombudsman Institution said in July 2022 that Greece had pushed back about 42,000 migrants since 2020. Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 16, 2022, the Turkish Coast Guard Command’s Aegean Command Station saved 47,498 irregular migrants in 1,550 separate cases across its areas of jurisdiction, over 18,000 of whom were victims of Greece’s pushback policy. In early 2023 alone, the Greek coast guard pushed back hundreds of migrants trying to cross the Aegean, causing at least nine deaths in two shipwrecks near Türkiye’s western shores last week.

Athens consistently rejects the accusations despite abundant migrant testimonies, media evidence and international scrutiny. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government, since coming into office in 2019, has vowed to make his country "less attractive" to asylum-seekers. Greece has also been accused of deliberately collaborating in its clampdown on migrants on its borders with the EU’s border protection agency Frontex, whose collaboration was confirmed by several media reports and an investigation by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) early in 2022.

In the meantime, pro-migration humanitarian groups in Greece have been lamenting the Greek government’s "toughening anti-migration stance" and "waging a witch-hunt" against refugees and their defenders, forcing some campaigners to step away from the struggle altogether. Last November, a lawyer who previously worked with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) to help pushback victims said she received less legal work because of her involvement in the notably sensitive case of dozens of Syrians stranded on the Greek-Turkish border earlier in 2022. Some 50 humanitarian workers are facing prosecution in Greece, following a trend in Italy that has also criminalized aid provision to migrants.