Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that his administration is investigating claims of migrant pushbacks at the Aegean Sea following the emergence of video footage showing Greek coastguard units forcefully putting migrants on a black inflatable life raft and setting them adrift.
"I... take this incident very seriously," he told the broadcaster CNN on Tuesday. "It is already being investigated by my government."
The footage, published Friday by The New York Times, shows what appears to be masked men on April 11 accosting migrants – including a baby – who had arrived in Greece by boat being bundled into a van.
In the video, the migrants are then taken out into the Aegean Sea, transferred to an inflatable raft and set adrift.
Turkish coastguard boats are seen rescuing them around an hour later.
The U.N. High Commission on human rights and the EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson have demanded a full investigation.
The video added to growing documentation by media and rights groups suggesting Greek authorities are involved in multiple "pushbacks" of migrants – which are illegal under international refugee law.
The Greek government has rejected the accusations, and Mitsotakis said that what was shown in the video was a "completely unacceptable practice."
The interview took place two days after his conservative New Democracy party came out on top in national elections but failed to secure an absolute majority.
But the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has described the footage as "disturbing" and called for an investigation and closer monitoring of the border region.
"Everyone has the right of protection from such treatment," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the commissioner. "An independent, effective investigation is crucial."
"We remain seriously concerned about continued and systematic pushbacks at the Greece-Türkiye border, which violate the prohibition of collective expulsions and the principle of non-refoulement," she added.
While the Turkish coast guard has come to the rescue of thousands pushed back by Greek authorities, countless others died at sea as boats full of refugees sank or capsized, especially in the Aegean Sea where both countries share a border.
Barely a month into 2023, Greece’s mistreatment of asylum-seekers reached double digits.
A report by Türkiye’s Ombudsman Institution said in July 2022 that Greece pushed back over 42,000 migrants since 2020.
Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 16, 2022, the Turkish Coast Guard Command’s Aegean Command Station saved 47,498 irregular migrants in 1,550 separate cases across its areas of responsibility, over 18,000 of whom were victims of Greece’s pushback policy.
Athens consistently denies the accusations despite abundant migrant testimonies, media evidence and international scrutiny. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ administration, since coming into office in 2019, has vowed to make his country “less attractive” to asylum-seekers.
The migrant crisis in the Aegean and the broader Mediterranean remains unsolved.
