to "violations of fundamental rights or international protection obligations that are of a serious nature or are likely to persist." 78 In a 23 August 2023 Press release, a group of experts of the U.N. Human Rights Council stated that: “We urge Greece to take steps to ensure a transparent and impartial investigation into allegations of violations of the principles of non-refoulement and non-discrimination and of the right to life involving Greek law enforcement personnel, including the Hellenic Coast Guard, and border violence.”79 Later on 1st December 2023, the Fundamental Rights Office of Frontex published a serious incident report about the Pylos shipwreck which, which concluded that “there was reasonable certainty that persons aboard Adriana were threatened by grave and imminent danger and required immediate assistance. …The Greek authorities appeared to have delayed the declaration of SAR operation until the moment of the shipwreck when it was no longer possible to rescue all the people on board, deployed insufficient and inappropriate resources considering the number of persons aboard Adriana, and failed to make use of the resources offered by Frontex. Fundamental Rights Office regrets that it was not given relevant information by the Greek authorities in response to its enquiry but expects to receive the results of two ongoing national judicial proceedings, as well as the Greek Ombudsman enquiry”. 80 Pushbacks at land borders In relation to pushbacks at land borders,81 the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants has noted that, in addition to ‘increased militarisation of the Evros land border … which has effectively resulted in preventing entry and in the summary and collective expulsion of tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers’, there have been allegations that ‘pushbacks are also reportedly carried out from urban areas, including reception and detention centres’.82 In a report issued in April 2022, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants stated that ‘[i]n Greece, pushbacks at land and sea borders have become de facto general policy’.83 On 21 February 2022, UNHCR expressed its concerns regarding recurrent and consistent reports from Greece’s land and sea borders with Türkiye. At least three people are reported to have died since September 2021 in the Aegean Sea, including one in January 2022, while almost 540 reported incidents of informal returns by Greece have been recorded since the beginning of 2020.84 The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has also been alarmed by increasing migrant deaths and continuous reports of pushbacks at the border between Greece and Türkiye.85 Regarding pushbacks on land, in June 2022 a journalistic investigation86 reported that the Greek police were using foreigners as “slaves” to 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 Le Monde, Frontex threatens to suspend its activities in Greece, 26 June 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/49oCN1k. UN Human Rights Council, Press release: Greece: UN experts call for safe, impartial border policies and practices, 23 August 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/4aIAtTW. The FRO Frontex Report dated on 1 December 2023, page 16, available at: https://bit.ly/3xjxX7Y. ECRE, Greece: MEPs Confront Commission Officials over Pushbacks, People on the Move Again Caught in the Stand-off with Turkiye in the Evros Region, 9 June 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3qqFSgk. Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Report on means to address the human rights impact of pushbacks of migrants on land and sea, 12 May 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3WvA94I, para. 55. United Nations, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Felipe González Morales, Human rights violations at international borders: trends, prevention and accountability, A/HRC/50/31, available at: https://bit.ly/4eHO68L, para 32. UNHCR, News Comment: UNHCR warns of increasing violence and human rights violations at European borders, 21 February 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/43jYnkL. IOM, IOM Concerned about Increasing Deaths on Greece-Türkiye Border, 18 February 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3MlQtjS. ‘…The Greek police are using foreigners as ‘slaves’ to forcibly return asylum seekers to Türkiye, In recent years there have been numerous accounts from the victims, as well as reports by human rights organisations and the media, stating that the men driving these boats speak Arabic or Farsi, indicating they are not from Greece. A months-long joint investigation with The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and ARD Report München has for the first time identified six of these men – who call themselves slaves– interviewed them and located the police stations where they were held. Some of the slaves, who are kept locked up between operations, were forcibly recruited themselves after crossing the border but others were lured there by smugglers working with a gangmaster who is hosted in a container located in the carpark of a Greek police station. In return for their ‘work’ they received papers allowing them to stay in Greece for 25 days’. See Der 39