REFUGEES are being forced onto motorless rubber dinghies and abandoned at sea by Greece’s authorities after reaching that country’s territory, a legal group has claimed. 

Reports of illegal pushbacks by the Greek coastguard have been rising since March, with migrant boats allegedly sent back to Turkey after entering Greek waters and even landing on the Aegean islands. 

Now a damning report by Legal Centre Lesvos, an advocacy group based on the island of Lesbos (also called Lesvos), claims that these are not isolated incidents but part of a “policy of deterrence and violent disruption of migrant crossings” by the Greek government. 

“When carried out as part of a widespread and systematic practice, as documented below, these amount to a crime against humanity,” the report argues. 

Pushbacks are banned under international law and NGOs warn that they often lead to further human rights abuses in the country of return. 

The Legal Centre Lesvos report, published on July 13, looks at testimonies from 37 refugees who were either subjected to collective expulsions or were in contact with those who had been. 

Based on these accounts, the group recorded eight expulsion events between March and June this year. 

The legal researchers found cases where the Greek authorities allegedly beat migrants, damaged their boats and confiscated their possessions. 

In the most disturbing cases, refugees were taken onto a Greek vessel but then allegedly thrown off the deck onto a life raft or their damaged dinghy three metres below. 

The victims were women, children, people with disabilities and some with medical problems, the report states. 

All recorded expulsions involved the arrivals being left on damaged or motorless boats in open water until they were rescued by the Turkish coastguard. 

Lorraine Leete of the legal centre said: “The Greek authorities are abandoning people in open water, on inflatable and motorless life rafts that are designed for rescue with no regard for their basic safety, let alone their right to apply for asylum.”

“Such audacious acts show the violence at the core of the European border regime and the disregard that it has for human life.”

Ms Leete added that the pushbacks were happening in “plain view” and accused the European Union of “complicity in these crimes” for failing to hold the Greek government to account. 

In June, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) urged Greece to investigate press and NGO reports of pushbacks at the border.

It renewed these calls today. “We urge Greece to investigate multiple reports of pushbacks at the country’s sea and land borders,” the UNHCR told the Star.

“Such allegations have increased since March and reports indicate that several groups of people may have been summarily returned after reaching Greek territory.”

However, the Greek government has repeatedly denied allegations of collective expulsions, dismissing them as “fake news.” 

Amnesty International migration researcher Adriana Tidona told the Morning Star that the Legal Centre Lesvos findings added “new alarming elements to the persisting allegations of pushbacks” in the Aegean Sea and pointed to an “intensification of this practice.”

Greece’s Immigration Ministry has been contacted for comment.