ATHENS: Greece rejected Monday a BBC investigation that alleged its coast guard caused the deaths of dozens of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe, denying accusations it had broken international law.
In an investigation published on its website on Monday, the BBC counted 43 migrants it said had died in the Aegean Sea after being turned back by Greek coast guards between May 2020 and May 2023.
Nine of the dead were deliberately thrown overboard, the publicly funded British broadcaster added.
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 coast guard “saves dozens of human lives each day.”
Greece has long been accused of carrying out illegal operations to force back migrants braving the perilous crossing from Turkiye’s western coast in the hope of reaching the European Union.
Though Athens has always denied the practice, numerous investigations by international media and rights groups have documented its existence, often with video evidence.
The BBC said its investigation examined 15 such pushback operations over a three-year period.
As well as basing its reporting on local media, NGOs and the Turkish coast guard, the BBC was able to interview eyewitnesses.
They include a Cameroonian national who said he and two other migrants were arrested after landing on the island of Samos in September 2021.
He said the police forced them onto a Greek coast guard boat, beating them as they went, before throwing them out into the water.
He was the only one to survive, with the bodies of his two companions — an Ivorian and another Cameroonian — washing up on the Turkish coast.
The eyewitness’s lawyers are calling for the Greek authorities to open a double murder case into the incident.
The EU said it was aware of the “terrible allegations.”
“Greek authorities, as in all EU member states, must fully respect obligations under the asylum and international law,” European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer told journalists in Brussels.
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.
The International Organization for Migration has declared the Mediterranean passage the world’s most perilous migration route.
In 2023, a migrant trawler with hundreds of people on board sank off the Greek coast, killing more than 600 people in one of Europe’s deadliest shipwrecks.
The survivors have filed a criminal complaint against the Greek coast guard.
They allege that the coast guard took hours to mount a response to the sinking ship, despite warnings from EU border agency Frontex and the NGO Alarm Phone.
Greece says BBC report does not prove coast guard threw migrants overboard
https://arab.news/6su5t
Greece says BBC report does not prove coast guard threw migrants overboard
- BBC investigation alleges that the Greek coastguard caused dozens of migrant deaths between 2020 and 2023
- Survivors have filed a criminal complaint against the Greek coast guard, accusing it of a slow response despite multiple warnings
Trending: BBC report suggests sexual abuse and torture in UAE-run Yemeni prisons
- The investigation was produced by British-Yemeni BBC journalist Nawal Al-Maghafi
LONDON: A recent BBC video report diving into what it says was UAE-run prison in Yemen has drawn widespread attention online and raised fresh questions about the role of the emirates in the war-torn country.
The report, published earlier this month and recently subtitled in Arabic and shared on social media, alleged that the prison — located inside a former UAE military base — was used to detain and torture detainees during interrogations, including using sexual abuse as a method.
The investigation was produced by British-Yemeni BBC journalist Nawal Al-Maghafi, who toured the site, looking into cells and what appear to be interrogation rooms.
Al-Maghafi said the Yemeni government invited the BBC team to document the facilities for the first time.
A former detainee, speaking anonymously, described severe abuse by UAE soldiers: “When we were interrogated, it was the worst. They even sexually abused us and say they will bring in the doctor. The ‘so-called’ doctor was an Emirati soldier. He beat us and ordered the soldiers to beat us too. I tried to kill myself multiple times to make it end.”
Yemeni information minister, Moammar al Eryani also appears in the report, clarifying that his government was unable to verify what occurred within sites that were under Emirati control.
“We weren’t able to access locations that were under UAE control until now,” he said, adding that “When we liberated it (Southern Yemen), we discovered these prisons, even though we were told by many victims that these prisons exist, but we didn't believe it was true.”
زارت بي بي سي مواقع داخل قواعد سابقة لدولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة في اليمن، حيث يقول محتجزون إنهم تعرضوا لسوء المعاملة. pic.twitter.com/BfS5GRxULp
— BBC News عربي (@BBCArabic) January 23, 2026
The BBC says it approached the UAE government for comment, however Abu Dhabi did not respond to its inquiries.
Allegations of secret detention sites in southern Yemen are not new. The BBC report echoes earlier reporting by the Associated Press (AP), which cited hundreds of men detained during counterterrorism operations that disappeared into a network of secret prisons where abuse was routine and torture severe.
In a 2017 investigation, the AP documented at least 18 alleged clandestine detention sites — inside military bases, ports, an airport, private villas and even a nightclub — either run by the UAE or Yemeni forces trained and backed by Abu Dhabi.
The report cited accounts from former detainees, relatives, civil rights lawyers and Yemeni military officials.
Following the investigation, Yemen’s then-interior minister called on the UAE to shut down the facilities or hand them over, and said that detainees were freed in the weeks following the allegations.
The renewed attention comes amid online speculation about strains between Saudi Arabia and the UAE over Yemen.
