"Doctors Without Borders" Greece is accused of violence against migrants

“Violence against migrants arriving in Greece has become routine,” says Doctors Without Borders.

Its representatives accuse Greece of brutal practices of pushing migrants out to sea and say that in these cases they use batons, insults and racketeering: they are “beaten”, “they take away their clothes” and “are sent back to the open sea”.

The organization says abuse of migrants and asylum seekers is systematic in Greece. On Thursday, November 2, a report entitled “In Plain Sight: The Human Cost of Migration Policy and Violence at Greece’s Maritime Borders” was released. It contains dozens of testimonies from migrants, medical data and the own observations of NGO staff on the islands of Lesbos and Samos between August 2021 and July 2023.

The refugees, according to the report, said they were insulted and beaten with batons by unknown masked men, and had their wrists and ankles shackled with plastic restraints. Some were robbed of their mobile phones, money and medicine and then forced onto boats, taken out to sea, placed on life rafts and sent adrift.

The authors of the report call on the Greek authorities and European leaders to stop the practice of “pushing back” migrants at the borders and advocated the creation of an independent system for monitoring the actions of border guards in the Aegean Sea.

There has been no official reaction from the Greek authorities yet. According to data from the Greek Ministry of Migration, almost 30 thousand migrants arrived in the country this year.