The allegations, as recently as mid-October to early November 2023, were obtained through detailed interviews with persons detained throughout Greece in various CCACs, PRDCs and other police and border guard establishments and related to alleged pushback operations that took place prior to their subsequent re-entry into Greek territory. Many allegations obtained in different locations from various unrelated individuals, including unaccompanied and separated children, corroborated the detailed descriptions and stories received elsewhere and concord with those documented by several other organisations, including UNHCR. Two patterns emerged relating to alleged pushbacks at the land border in the Evros region and to alleged pushbacks at sea, and they are described in the report. The Greek authorities have continued to maintain that violent forcible informal removals from Greece to Türkiye do not occur. For the CPT, there is sufficient information to conclude that pushbacks to Türkiye have taken place and continue to take place, albeit on a smaller scale at present. The focus must now be on ending violent, dangerous and illegal pushback operations once and for all. Further, effective investigations should be carried out into the allegations of pushback operations that have been filed with the relevant authorities, including the Naval Prosecutor. The CPT urges the Greek authorities to act to prevent any form of pushbacks taking place either across the Evros River border or at sea in the Eastern Aegean by law enforcement officials, military or coast guard personnel, as well as by foreign nationals employed to carry out such tasks. All foreign nationals arriving at the border or present in the territory of Greece who wish to request international protection should be effectively protected against the risk of refoulement, including possible chain refoulement. To this end, every foreign national intercepted or apprehended at the border should benefit from specific safeguards, including the opportunity to apply for asylum. Finally, on 15 January 2025, Forensic Architectures (FA) published the result of its investigative research on the situation at the Evros river.143 FA notes that: the river is a hotspot for illegal crossings of refugees and migrants into Europe, as well as a laboratory for border defence technologies at the continent’s frontier. Meanwhile, the course of the river has changed over the century. … Within that space, migrants and refugees are hunted, detained, tortured, ‘pushed back’ across the river by border guards, or abandoned on islets for days, even weeks. A military buffer zone, dotted with guard stations, watchtowers and fences, runs along both banks of the river, excluding monitors, researchers, and medical professionals. Survivors of ‘pushbacks’ describe having their phones, documents, and possessions confiscated and often thrown into the river, ensuring that little documentation of this lethal border zone escapes to the outside world”. 144 In this context, as FA explains, “since early 2020, more than sixty groups of asylum seekers that attempted to cross into Greece found themselves stranded on islets in the middle of the river. These groups were either led there by smugglers or border guards from the Turkish side of the river, or forced there by Greek authorities during pushbacks. In both cases, the islets are used as spaces where asylum seekers are abandoned for weeks on end, often without clothes, food or water, so that either littoral authority can deny responsibility for their reception and rescue. Fatalities from lack of access to food, water and medical care, insect and snake bites, hypothermia, drowning, or injuries are a common outcome of this practice. As FA explain, the scope of this platform is meant as a useful counter-cartographic tool at the hands of asylum seekers, activists, humanitarian workers and researchers in their pursuit of accountability for ongoing border crimes, and in their efforts to support stranded groups in the region. Finally, the platform includes various data in an interactive map, such as the stranding of people on the move, the maps and aerial graphics from five different periods, infrastructures (Border Guard Stations, Watchtowers, Surveillance Antennas) and the changes in the landscape after the wildfires of August 2023 in Evros. Pushbacks at sea On 7 January 2025, the ECtHR published its judgment in the case of the G.R.J. v. Greece. 145 The case concerned the alleged pushback of an Afghan unaccompanied minor from the Greek island of Samos to Türkiye in 2020. In its judgement, the Court concluded that “there were strong indications to suggest that, at the time of the events alleged, a systematic practice of “pushbacks” from the Greek islands to Türkiye 143 144 145 Forensic Architecture, The Evros/Meric River: A century of border design, 15 January 2025, available here. Ibid. ECtHR, G.R.J. v. Greece (Application no. 15067/21), available at: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre?i=001240283. 48