ATHENS: Greece denies a fresh report that accused its coast guard brutalities towards migrants seeking asylum in Greece, also claiming it had led to many casualties.
A BBC report has found that 43 migrants drowned, nine of them thrown into water and the other cases involving 15 incidents have been captured taking place off the islands of eastern Aegean Sea in Greece between 2020-2023. It relied on interviews with eye witnesses, responding to reports by the media, NGOs and Turkish coastguard. Greece government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said there was no evidence to back the claims up. “As we understand what is reported is not proven,” he commented on these allegations.
Greek coastguard and police are regularly accused by migrant charities and human rights organizations who claim that they prevent people from accessing international protection when they secretly push them back into Turkey’s waters. This has been denied vociferously by Greece.
In the recent BBC report, a Cameroonian man claimed he and two others were picked up by masked men including policemen just after they arrived at Samos Island. He stated that all three were put into a boat belonging to the coast guard and thrown overboard where his friends died as a result of drowning. The same report included testimony from a Syrian man who said he was one of a group picked up in Greek waters by their country’s coastguards near Rhodes Island; according to him these survivors were cast adrift on Turkish seas in life rafts where some died later.
