Türkiye has come to the rescue of 204 more irregular migrants illegally pushed back into its territorial waters by Greek coast guards, officials announced Tuesday.

Some 50 foreign nationals on lifeboats were picked up off the coast of Çeşme district in the western Izmir province, the Turkish Coast Guard Command said.

Separately, the coast guard saved 64 migrants lost on rubber boats near the coast of Izmir’s Dikili and Urla districts and 59 other migrants who were pushed back by Greece off the coast of Kuşadası district in the Aydın province.

Turkish teams also rescued 13 irregular migrants in the Ayvacık district of Çanakkale province and 18 more near the Datça district in Muğla province.

After they were rescued, all migrants were taken to provincial migration offices.

Türkiye is a critical transit route for asylum-seekers hoping to cross into Europe in search of better lives, especially those fleeing war and prosecution in the larger Middle East and Northern Africa. Both human rights groups and media outlets have widely documented Greece’s human rights breaches and violent anti-migrant policy.

Ankara, too, has repeatedly condemned Athens’ illegal practice of pushing back asylum-seekers, stressing that it violates humanitarian values and international law by endangering the lives of vulnerable migrants, including women and children.

While the Turkish coast guard has come to the rescue of thousands sent back by Greek authorities, countless others died at sea as boats full of refugees sank or capsized, especially in the Aegean Sea, where both countries share a border.

Barely a month into 2023, Greece’s mistreatment of asylum-seekers has reached double digits. Over the past four weeks alone, Greek coast guards pushed back hundreds of migrants trying to cross the Aegean.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) recorded nearly 2,000 migrants as 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 nearly 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 responsibility, including over 18,000 victims of Greece’s pushback policy.

Greece argues this policy is "strict but fair," and despite increasing evidence to the contrary, they have consistently denied conducting illegal summary deportation of people arriving in Greek territory without allowing them to apply for asylum. Indeed, the country has clamped down on migration with an iron fist since the height of the refugee crisis in 2015, erecting a fence along much of its land with Türkiye and increasing sea patrols near its islands.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government since coming into office in 2019 has vowed to make his country "less attractive" to asylum-seekers.