Greek coastguard ‘threw migrants to their deaths’
The Greek coastguard threw nine migrants overboard to their deaths and caused dozens more to die over the past three years, an investigation has found.
Witnesses said they saw nine people drown in the Mediterranean sea. They were among more than 40 alleged to have died after illegal pushbacks from Greek islands or territorial waters.
Migrants said they were thrown directly into the sea by Greek authorities in five of the incidents. In four cases, they landed on Greek islands but were hunted down by the authorities. Others said they were put on punctured and sinking inflatable rafts without motors.
Greece has long been accused of illegal forced returns of migrants hoping to reach Europe back towards Turkey. Some 41,561 migrants arrived in Greece last year out of 263,048 sea arrivals in Europe.
The coastguard said it strongly rejected all accusations of illegal activities when the claims were put to it by the BBC.
The broadcaster analysed 15 incidents resulting in 43 deaths from May 2020-23.
The BBC spoke to eyewitnesses in four of the cases, which is extremely rare, for a new documentary Dead Calm: Killing in the Med? Its other sources were local media, the Turkish coastguard and NGOs.
A Cameroonian asylum seeker was caught by Greek authorities after landing on the island of Samos in September 2021.
“We had barely docked, and the police came from behind,” he told the BBC. “There were two policemen dressed in black, and three others in civilian clothes. They were masked, you could only see their eyes.”
He was transferred to a coastguard boat with another man from Cameroon and another from the Ivory Coast.
He said: “They started with the [other] Cameroonian. They threw him in the water. The Ivorian man said: ‘Save me, I don’t want to die… and then eventually only his hand was above water, and his body was below.
“Slowly his hand slipped under, and the water engulfed him.”
He was beaten like “an animal” before being pushed into the water without a life jacket. He managed to swim to shore but the bodies of the other two migrants, who were called Sidy Keita and Didier Martial Kouamou Nana, were found on the Turkish coastline.
A Somalian man told the BBC he was caught on the island of Chios and handed to the coastguard in March 2021. He said the coastguard tied his hands behind his back and threw him into the water.
“They threw me zip-tied in the middle of the sea. They wanted me to die,” he said.
He survived by floating on his back until he could free his hands. He made it to land where he was spotted by the Turkish coastguard. Three in his group died, he told the BBC.
In a separate September 2020 incident, a Syrian migrant called Mohamed said “seven or eight” children died after the coastguard left them on a sinking raft.
A boat was carrying 85 migrants close to Rhodes when the engine cut out. The Greek coastguard returned them to Turkish waters and put them in life rafts. Mohamed’s raft began sinking because its valve was not closed properly.
“They heard us all screaming, and yet they still left us,” he told the BBC.
“The first child who died was my cousin’s son… After that it was one by one. Another child, another child, then my cousin himself disappeared. By the morning seven or eight children had died.
“My kids didn’t die until the morning… right before the Turkish coastguard arrived.”
‘Men working undercover’
Human rights groups allege thousands of people have been illegally forced back from Greece and denied their legal right to seek asylum.
Greek law allows asylum seekers to register their claims at special centres on several islands but the interviewed migrants said they were detained before they could reach them.
They claimed the men stopping them were non-uniformed, often masked and apparently working undercover.
The Greek Coastguard said it obeyed international law and worked “tirelessly with the utmost professionalism, a strong sense of responsibility and respect for human life and fundamental rights”.
It added: “It should be highlighted that from 2015 to 2024, the Hellenic Coast Guard has rescued 250,834 refugees/migrants in 6,161 incidents at sea. The impeccable execution of this noble mission has been positively recognised by the international community.”
The coastguard was criticised last June after more than 600 people died in the biggest migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean for a decade.
Greece insists that the Adriana was not in trouble and on its way to Italy and so did not attempt a rescue.
Ten die following two incidents
It comes as ten migrants died with dozens of others feared missing after two shipwrecks off Italy on Monday.
Rescuers coming to the aid of migrants on a wooden boat off Lampedusa found 10 bodies below deck, the German aid group ResQship posted on X, formerly Twitter.
The crew aboard ResQship’s vessel, the Nadir, “is currently caring for 51 people on board. The rescue came too late for 10 people,” the German charity said.
“A total of 61 people were on the wooden boat, which was full of water. Our crew was able to evacuate 51 people, two of whom were unconscious - they had to be cut free with an axe,” it said. “The 10 dead are in the flooded lower deck of the boat,” it added.
Meanwhile Italy’s coastguard said it was searching off Calabria for people overboard after a separate shipwreck, with local media reporting that up to 60 migrants were missing, according to the survivors.
Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis denied the claims. “We monitor every publication, every investigation, but I repeat: what has been reported is in no way proven,” he said, adding the coastguard “saves dozens of human lives each day”.
