As a gateway for migrants into Europe, Greece plans to build a 140-kilometer (87-mile) steel fence on its border with Türkiye along the Maritsa (Meriç) River, Greek Citizen Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos announced Saturday.
Speaking to local Skai TV, Theodorikakos said his ministry has launched a project on building a fence to prevent migrant crossings. In December, Greece announced it would deploy 250 border police to tighten patrol and surveillance measures near the Maritsa region on the Turkish border.
Athens built a 40-kilometer steel barrier on the land border between Türkiye and Greece to prevent irregular migration, and the construction process was completed in August 2021.
The country is repeatedly accused of mistreatment of migrants who enter the country, mostly to reach other European countries in pursuit of better lives.
On Tuesday, Türkiye's National Defense Ministry revealed that a Turkish naval drone recorded footage of Greek forces illegally pushing back a boat carrying irregular migrants to Turkish territorial waters. The illegal Greek pushback was recorded north of the Greek island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea on Dec. 30, the ministry said in a tweet.
Ankara and international human rights groups have repeatedly condemned Greece's illegal practice of pushing back asylum-seekers, saying it violates humanitarian values and international law by endangering the lives of vulnerable people, including women and children.
A report in 2022 by Türkiye's Ombudsman Institution said that Greece had pushed back nearly 42,000 asylum-seekers since 2020. The report titled "Pushbacks and Drowning Human Rights in the Aegean Sea" exposes the violation of international immigration law by Greece. According to the data from the Directorate of Migration Management that the report used, Greek forces pushed back 41,523 asylum-seekers between 2020 and May 31, 2022. "The pushbacks in themselves are against international law, and many of the pushback practices are accompanied by grave rights violations," the report said.
In recent years, hundreds of thousands have made short but perilous journeys across the Aegean to reach Northern and Western Europe in search of a better life. Hundreds of people have died at sea as many boats carrying refugees sank or capsized. The Turkish Coast Guard Command has rescued thousands of others.
Noting that 98% of the pushbacks involved torture and ill-treatment, the report said 88% of the 8,000 asylum-seekers who came to the Greek border were beaten. It added that 97% suffered theft, 5% suffered sexual assault and 8% electric shocks, while 49% were forced to undress and 16% drowned. Of the children among them, 68% were exposed to or witnessed violence and abuse, the report stressed. As a result of these practices in land pushbacks, 53 asylum-seekers died last year, including 33 who froze to death and drowned in the Meriç River, which forms the border between Greece and Türkiye.
The report also revealed that asylum-seekers in Greece's pushback practices at sea were thrown overboard, sometimes with their hands cuffed behind their backs and sometimes without life jackets. This led to the deaths of eight irregular migrants last year, along with three in 2022 as of May 31. However, these numbers are merely the tip of the iceberg since authorities prevented asylum-seekers from seeking their rights, accessing complaint mechanisms and reporting violations, it said. "It has been demonstrated by concrete evidence that Frontex (the European Border and Coast Guard Agency) participated in these actions by Greece, supported many actions and condoned many of them," it added.
Pushbacks are contrary to international refugee protection agreements, which dictate that people should not be expelled or returned to a country where their life and safety might be in danger due to their race, religion, nationality or membership in a social or political group.
Türkiye has been a critical transit point for irregular migrants who want to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution in their countries. It already hosts 4 million refugees, more than any other country in the world, and is taking new security measures on its borders to prevent an influx of migrants humanely.
