Greece has made a "recurring practice" of alleged, secret, illegal and often brutal deportations back to Türkiye from two eastern Greek islands, according to a leading international medical charity, citing 50 testimonies over the past two years from migrants.
Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, said in a report released Thursday that the forced returns were said to have been carried out by uniformed Greek officers or unknown masked individuals.
The report follows charges by charities, activists and Turkish authorities, who alleged similar actions in the Aegean Sea and at the northeastern land border with Türkiye.
Athens has strongly denied such so-called "pushbacks," arguing that its coast guard has saved hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa crossing in small boats from Türkiye.
Greece says it needs to protect its borders, which are also those of the European Union, from mass illegal immigration. It has stepped up patrols in the Aegean Sea with the help of the European Border Surveillance Agency, Frontex.
In March 2020, Türkiye opened its borders into the EU and actively encouraged migrants to cross into Greece.
MSF said Thursday that in one case, migrants reported to its staff that two people — including a pregnant woman — allegedly died off Samos when their boat was towed at high speed toward Turkish waters.
"As a medical and humanitarian organization, we could not stay silent in the face of the exceptional scale and severity of the violence reported to our teams" on Lesbos and Samos, MSF said. It added that "non-assistance (to migrants), violence and pushbacks have become part and parcel of a system of border management" on the two islands.
Lesbos and Samos, both key landing points for migrants arriving from Türkiye, are the only Greek islands where MSF is active.
As a result, MSF warned, migrants are turning to alternative, longer voyages that pose a greater risk of hardship or death. There has been an increase in recent years of yachts crammed with migrants leaving Türkiye and rounding southern Greece to head for Italy.
MSF said its report drew from accounts by migrants between Aug. 2021 and July 2023. It didn’t cite any first-hand observation of pushbacks by its own teams but said they had met indications of violence against newly arrived migrants.
"MSF teams have borne witness to how normalized pushbacks have become, and to the stark absence of protection for people who seek safety in Greece," MSF said.
It added that the discrepancy between the over 10,000 arrivals reported to MSF over the two-year period and the nearly 8,000 people actually found "indicate(s) that people unaccounted for by MSF ... may have been forcibly returned to Türkiye."
The group said it held anonymous interviews with 56 people who claimed to have suffered illegal deportations. A total of 183 pushbacks were reported, with nine people claiming to have fallen victim to the practice between eight and 14 times.
The charity says it has provided emergency medical assistance to nearly 8,000 individuals over the past two years, including over 1,500 children.
The report said that while some allegations concerned boats being stopped at sea and towed back to Turkish waters, others said that people who had reached Lesbos and Samos were rounded up before they could claim asylum, mistreated and then dumped offshore on inflatable life rafts.
"From land, testimonies point to a pattern of practices including physical assault, handcuffing, informal detention, groups being forcibly taken to the shore before being pushed back at sea, as well as humiliating strip searches," it said.
The perpetrators were described as "groups of unidentified people with covered faces" who often stole migrants’ phones, money and other possessions.
"MSF has witnessed people running out of the forest screaming, crying and reporting being beaten, and MSF medical staff have treated people on the spot for suspected violence-related injuries," it said.
On several occasions, MSF said its teams rushing to provide assistance to people in distress on Greek islands were delayed for checks by local law enforcement.
On five occasions, they were actively blocked from reaching the scene.
In two cases, MSF said its workers found people who said they had been handcuffed with zip ties by masked men who ran away when they heard the MSF teams approaching.
Between August 2021 and July 2023, MSF said its teams in Samos and Lesbos treated 467 survivors of sexual violence and 88 patients who had survived female genital mutilation in their country of origin.
Many of these women and girls were also suspected survivors of trafficking, while some were pregnant or had given birth after being raped.
The Greek migration ministry has been contacted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) for comment.
MSF said that "despite extensive and credible evidence," Greek authorities, the EU and its member states "have failed to hold to account the perpetrators of these violations."
In June, the EU border agency asked Athens to provide "clarifications and information" on two reported pushback allegations.
That month, a dilapidated and overloaded former trawler capsized and sank off Pylos in the Peloponnese, drowning 82 people, while hundreds were reported missing.
Forty of the survivors have filed a group lawsuit against Greek authorities for failing to take appropriate action before the boat sank.
MSF said the current situation at Europe's borders "is the result of EU policies that condone and enable continued violence against individuals in need."
Despite extensive documentation and reporting of violent pushbacks at both land and sea "there is a striking and longstanding lack of accountability at Greece and Europe," it said.
Greece and Türkiye in December are expected to discuss a renewal of a 2016 EU deal restricting migration.
Greece's migration ministry this week said arrivals began increasing in mid-2022, peaking in September before declining in October.
In the first nine months of the year, migrant arrivals in Greece spiked to over 29,700 people, compared to 11,000 in the same period in 2022, the ministry said.