the national authorities to carry out the thorough and effective investigation which they were required to carry out and to provide the necessary evidence. On the contrary, the three Members of the Court, in a strong joint minority opinion, held that Greece should be condemned also on the substantive part of the violation of Article 3 ECHR. Pushbacks at sea In April 2022, a research was published 78 on the involvement79 of Frontex in the pushbacks of at least 957 refugees between March 2020 and September 2021. It was noted 80 that ‘the term “prevention of departure” is commonly used to report practices better known as pushbacks, illegal under Greek, EU and international law. This was confirmed in interviews with several sources within Frontex as well as the Greek authorities.’ In July 2022, the ECtHR issued81 a long awaited, landmark judgment on the case Safi and others v. Greece82 (the Farmakonisi case) which was supported by GCR, the Refugee Support Aegean with the support of Pro Asyl, the Network of Social Support of Refugees and Immigrants, the Lawyers’ Group for the rights of Refugees and Immigrants and the Hellenic League for Human Rights. The case concerned the sinking of a fishing boat transporting 27 foreign nationals in the Aegean Sea in January 2014, off the island of Farmakonisi, resulting in the death of 11 people. According to the allegations of the applicants, the coastguard vessel was travelling at very high speed in order to push the refugees back towards Turkish waters and this caused the fishing boat to capsize, which the Greek Authorities refuted. The Strasbourg Court found a violation of the right to life, both due to the authorities’ failure to investigate such a significant case responsibly and effectively, and to those actions that they should and could have taken to protect human lives and prevent the tragic incident. The Court also held that Coast Guard officers had inflicted degrading and inhuman treatment against shipwreck survivors that night. The judgment of ECtHR ‘vindicates the victims by awarding compensation from the Greek State and brings to light an issue systematically concealed in public discourse: push backs and systematic deterrence practices which put lives at risk on a daily basis in Evros and the Aegean’. 83 Forensic Architecture have reported around 1,000 pushback incidents within the last two years on their platform,84 which allegedly occurred from 2020 to 2022 on the Greek islands,85 with 103 incidents being recorded in 2022 alone. By way of illustration, the following pushback incidents at sea were reported in 2022 and documented by Forensic Architecture: ❖ An incident that allegedly happened on 26 February 2022 on Lesvos, when 35 asylum seekers on an inflatable boat with no engine were intercepted by the Hellenic Coast Guard vessel ΛΣ 050 and the boat was later found drifting by the Turkish Coast Guard off the coast of Ayvalık. 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 DER SPIEGEL, together with Lighthouse Reports, the Swiss media outlets SRF and Republik and the French newspaper Le Monde spent months researching Frontex’s involvement in the Greek pushbacks. Following a request under the European Freedom of Information Act, the researchers succeeded in gaining access to the internal Frontex database and matching entries with photos and videos of pushback operations. The research reveals the full extent of Frontex support for Greek pushbacks in the Aegean Sea for the first time, available at: https://bit.ly/433JkvS. Lighthouse reports, FRONTEX, THE EU PUSHBACK AGENCY, Frontex’s internal database suggests the EU border agency is involved in illegal pushbacks on a massive scale, MAY 6, 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3WpRXyg. Ibid. Eva Cossé, ‘European Court Slams Greece Over Deadly Migrant Pushback Inquiry on Pushbacks Is Urgently Needed’, 8 July 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3otdzNS . ECtHR, Safi and others v. Greece, application no 5418/15, 7 July 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/45oTicG Press Conference: Judgement from the European Court of Human Rights in Safi and Others v Greece (Farmakonisi), Written on 07/07/2022 with a short summary of the case ,available at: https://bit.ly/3OzXBfA and Vindication by the ECHR for Farmakonisi: Press conference on Monday, 11 July 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3q61nmD. FA, platform available at: https://bit.ly/41W0slW. Article (in Greek) published on 15.7.2022 in ‘Ethnos’, Πασχάλης Γαγάνης, Έρευνα Forensic Architecture: Πάνω από 1.000 επαναπροωθήσεις στο Αιγαίο σε 2 χρόνια - «Ξυλοδαρμοί, κλοπές ακόμα και ρίψη στη θάλασσα με χειροπέδες», available (in Greek) at: https://bit.ly/3MRg9Xm. 35