Dozens of illegal migrants lost their lives when pushed back by the Greek coastguard from the country’s territorial waters. Among them were nine people who were “deliberately thrown into the water,” investigations by BBC have alleged quoting witnesses.
In a documentary, Dead Calm: Killing in the Med? BBC pieced together details of 15 incidents occurring three years from May 2020 to May 2023, in which 43 people reportedly died.
The number of deaths were calculated on the basis of accounts of witnesses, an NGO and Turkish coastguard officials.
Horrific stories emerged of the migrants being thrown into the sea by Greek authorities. A Cameroonian who had reached Samos in 2021 wanting to register himself as an asylum seeker was picked up from his boat by policemen.
With the migrant were his fellow countryman and a third person from Ivory Coast.
Suddenly, after the three were transferred to another boat, the second Cameroonian was thrown into the water. Despite pleading that he did not want to die the Ivorian was next, with the witness describing how only his hand could be seen before the water “engulfed him.”
The first man managed to swim to safety when he was pushed from the boat.
In another incident a Somalian was thrown “zip-tied” into the sea.
He too managed to escape.
The nine who died after being thrown into the water on purpose were among 40-plus people who lost their lives after being forced out of the Greek maritime border or being sent back to sea after reaching the Greek islands.
In another incident a boat with 85 migrants was left marooned near the Greek island of Rhodes after its motor cut out.
One of the migrants, a Syrian, said the Greek coastguard was contacted and authorities put them on a boat, transferring them to life rafts on reaching Turkish waters.
One of the life rafts had a loose valve and started sinking, but no one came to their rescue despite the migrants' cries of distress.
People kept falling off the raft and by the morning seven children had died, the Syrian said. His children died in the morning.
Many witnesses have disappeared or some were afraid to talk, it has been revealed.
The Greek coastguard denied the allegations. But when shown footage of 12 people being loaded on a Greek coastguard boat and then left on a dinghy, a coastguard official filmed by BBC, who forgot to take off his mic, was heard saying during a break in filming that the action was “illegal” and “an international crime.”
Allegations have surfaced off and on about forced returns by the Greek government and illegal migrants being sent towards Turkey, the place from where they were likely to have crossed over.
All migrants seeking asylum are allowed by Greek law to register their claim on several of the islands at special registration centres.
Human rights groups have alleged that thousands of asylum seekers in Europe had been illegally forced back from Greece to Turkey and denied their rights under international and EU law.
Greece's Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy told the BBC that the footage was being investigated by the country's independent National Transparency Authority.
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