Greek coastguard ‘threw migrants to their deaths'

THE deaths of 43 migrants have been blamed on Greece's coastal patrols with accusations that nine people were deliberately hurled overboard into the Mediterranean Sea.

- Hanna Geissler

An investigation of 15 incidents over three years discovered dozens of fatalities allegedly linked to authorities illegally returning migrants to the sea after they had reached land or forcing vessels out of Greece's waters.

The coastguard has strongly rejected that it had broken the law, insisting its staff worked "tirelessly with the utmost professionalism, a strong sense of responsibility and respect for human life and fundamental rights".

A BBC team spoke to several witnesses, including a man from Somalia who claimed he was handed to the coastguard after being caught arriving on the island of Chios in March 2021.

He said: "They threw me zip-tied in the middle of the sea. They wanted me to die."

The man revealed he survived by floating on his back until he was able to free one of his hands but three others died.

In another alleged incident in September 2022, the Greek coastguard responded after the motor cut out on a boat carrying 85 migrants near the island of Rhodes. Mohamed, a man from Syria, said the group was loaded on to a boat and dumped back in Turkish waters in life-rafts.

A valve had not been properly closed on the raft his family were given, he alleged, and they "immediately began to sink".