ATHENS: Greece has “normalized” abusive pushbacks of migrants under a broader EU policy that ignores violence against people in need, the international charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday.
Tens of thousands of migrants, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, have entered Greece in recent years from the sea and land borders with Turkiye.
Greece has stepped up patrols in the Aegean Sea with the help of the European Border Surveillance Agency, Frontex.
“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 in a report.
“Despite extensive and credible evidence, Greek authorities, the EU and its member states have failed to hold to account the perpetrators of these violations,” it added.
In June, 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 Greek and Europe,” it said.
The charity says it has provided emergency medical assistance to nearly 8,000 individuals over the past two years, including over 1,500 children.
Most patients treated by the group said they had survived multiple pushbacks while many “were trapped in cycles of violence on arrival,” MSF said.
The organization said it had recorded testimonies of “violence, physical assault, strip searches and intrusive body searches on children, women and men” by uniformed officers and unidentified masked individuals.
The Greek migration ministry has been contacted by AFP for comment.
Between August 2021 and July 2023, MSF said its teams on the Aegean islands of 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 group also acknowledged reports of pushbacks on land, with people detained, forcibly placed on life rafts and left to drift back to Turkish waters.
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.
Greece and Turkiye 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.
Abusive pushbacks of migrants ‘normalized’ in Greece: MSF
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Abusive pushbacks of migrants ‘normalized’ in Greece: MSF
- Tens of thousands of migrants, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, have entered Greece in recent years
- “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 in a report
Storms spark travel mayhem and power cuts in northern Europe
- Some 50 flights were canceled in London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers
- In France, Goretti cut power to some 380,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region
CHERBOURG, France: Gale-force winds and storms barrelled through northern Europe on Friday, disrupting air and rail travel and cutting power to hundreds of thousands in freezing temperatures.
Some 50 flights were canceled in London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers, with air travel disrupted across Europe from the Czech Republic to Moscow.
Forecasters from Britain to Germany urged people to stay indoors as they issued weather warnings, including the rare, highest-level red wind alert for the British Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in southwestern England.
All trains were canceled in Cornwall on Friday.
Some 57,000 homes in the UK remained without electricity, according to the National Grid energy provider, after Storm Goretti brought strong winds and heavy snow to parts of the country overnight.
More than 250 schools remained closed across Scotland, which has struggled through bad weather for much of the first week back after the Christmas break.
In France, Goretti cut power to some 380,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region, the Enedis power provider said.
Overnight, gusts of up to 216 kilometers per hour (134 miles per hour) were registered in France’s northwestern Manche region, authorities said.
The winds felled trees with at least one crashing on residential buildings in France’s Seine-Maritime region, without injuries, authorities said.
Gusts of up to 160 kph lashed England and Wales with the Met Office forecasting agency warning of “very large waves” bringing “dangerous conditions to coastal areas.”
It also issued an amber snow warning in Wales, central England and parts of northern England, predicting snow of up to 30 centimeters (11 inches) in some areas.
More than 10 people have died in weather-related accidents this week across Europe.
The latest deaths were reported by Turkish media, where five people were killed.
While two were killed in separate accidents involving dislodged roof tiles, a Syrian man died when a wall fell on him, a construction worker was swept into the Aegean Sea and a pensioner fell off a roof.
- Schools out -
Schools remained shut in parts of northern France, where weather alerts have been issued in 30 other regions.
Giant waves crashed over harbor walls across France’s far northwest overnight, and as the storm moved eastwards it brought flooding and forced the closure of roads and ports including Dieppe.
Northern Germany faced severe disruption from heavy snow and high winds brought by Storm Elli, with schools ordered closed in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen and long-distance rail services canceled.
Some 600 schools were closed in Moldova until next Monday and around 1,000 homes were without electricity in Romania.
Floodwaters were meanwhile receding in parts of the Balkans on Friday after heavy snowfall and torrential downpours earlier in the week triggered hundreds of evacuations across several countries and killed at least two people.
In Albania, one of the hardest-hit in the region, Prime Minister Edi Rama said authorities were beginning to count the cost of flooding after hundreds of homes were inundated primarily in the south.
But weather warnings for icy conditions and snowfall remained in effect across most of the region, including Serbia, where parts of the west have been without power for days after a snowstorm knocked out power lines.
