Greece rejected Monday a new report accusing its coast guard of brutally preventing migrants from reaching Greek shores and causing the deaths of dozens of migrants crossing the Aegean Sea, mostly from Türkiye.
A BBC report said it had been ascertained that 43 migrants drowned – including nine who were thrown into the water – in 15 incidents off Greece's eastern Aegean Sea islands in 2020-2023. It cited interviews with eyewitnesses, following reports from media, charities and the Turkish coast guard.
Greek government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis insisted that there was no evidence to support the allegations.
“Our understanding is that what is reported is not proved,” he told a regular press briefing when asked about the claims. “Every complaint is looked into, and in the end, the relevant findings are made public.”
Greece is a major gateway for migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia seeking a better life in the affluent European Union. Thousands slip into the country every year, mostly in small boats from neighboring Türkiye.
Relations with Türkiye are often tense, and the Turkish coast guard has repeatedly accused the Greek side of mistreating migrants.
Migrant charities and human rights groups have repeatedly accused Greece's coast guard and police of illegally preventing arriving migrants from seeking asylum via Turkish waters.
Greece has angrily denied the accusations, arguing its border forces have saved hundreds of thousands of migrants from sinking boats.
The country's reputation took a further knock in June 2023, when a battered fishing vessel with an estimated 750 people on board sank.
Only 104 people survived, despite the Greek coast guard having shadowed the vessel for hours, and the trawler sank after a botched attempt by the coast guard to tow it. Greek authorities again denied these allegations.
The new BBC report included a claim by a Cameroonian man that he and two other migrants were picked up by masked men, including police, just after landing on the island of Samos.
The man claimed all three were put in a coast guard boat and thrown into the sea, and that the other two men drowned as a result.
The report also quoted a Syrian man who said he was part of a group picked up at sea by the Greek coast guard off Rhodes. He said the survivors were put in life rafts and left adrift in Turkish waters, where several died after one life raft sank before the Turkish coast guard came to pick them up.
Marinakis said “it is wrong to target” the Greek coast guard. “In any case, we monitor every report and investigation, but I repeat: What is mentioned (in the BBC report) is in no case backed up by evidence,” he said.
Greece’s illegal practice has been documented by Türkiye, international human rights groups and charities on many occasions, as well.
Citing 50 testimonies over the past two years from migrants, an Oct. 31, 2023 report from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) too made similar accusations, saying Greece had made a “recurring practice” of alleged secret, illegal and often brutal deportations back to Türkiye.
The Turkish Coast Guard Command rescued 25,889 irregular migrants pushed back Greece in the Aegean Sea in 2023 alone, according to data from the agency.
It said the highest number of pushbacks – some 11,715 migrants – occurred off the coast of western Izmir province, which has a meandering coast stretching over 460 kilometers (286 miles) and close to the Greek islands. Izmir was followed by other western provinces, Muğla, Çanakkale, Aydın and Balıkesir.
Türkiye itself copes with the irregular migration phenomenon as crises across the world once again put it at the forefront of migrant influx as a gateway to Europe.
The issue has been raised numerous times in bilateral talks between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis but the sides have struggled to cooperate to resolve it.
