Informal cooperation between states has prevented thousands of women, men and children from seeking protection in Europe this year, according to a report released by nine human rights organisations.
The Protecting Rights at Borders (Prab) initiative has recorded 2,162 cases of “pushbacks” at different borders in Italy, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Hungary carried out on the basis of bilateral agreements between countries, which resulted in them circumventing their responsibilities and pushing unwanted groups back outside the EU.
The report comes as Greece was also singled out for criticism on Wednesday with Europe’s top human rights watchdog urging a halt to the practice of pushing back migrants at the land and sea borders it shares with Turkey.
In a damning letter, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović, said it was incumbent on Athens’ centre-right government to properly investigate the pushbacks. “I am deeply concerned that, two and a half years later, allegations of pushbacks persist,” she wrote, referring to an initial visit in which the issue had been raised.
“The way in which these operations are reportedly carried out would clearly be incompatible with Greece’s human rights obligations,” she said.
The commissioner said that, all too often, the official reaction of Greek authorities was to simply dismiss the charges, despite what she described as “the overwhelming body of evidence that has been presented in recent years”.
But issuing its strongest rebuttal yet, Athens responded by insisting that the police and coastguards were instructed to act “in full compliance” with Greece’s international obligations both at sea and along the border with Turkey at the Evros River (also known as Maritsa or Meriç), where Greek officials work closely with Frontex, the European border agency.
