EU demands Greece investigate footage of alleged expulsion of migrants

THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU) said it has demanded that Greece open a comprehensive probe into video footage depicting an alleged forceful expulsion of migrants who are set adrift at sea.

EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson said on Twitter: “My services have sent a formal request to Greek authorities that this incident be fully and independently investigated.”

The footage, published by the New York Times on Friday, showed what appeared to be masked men on 11 April accosting migrants, including a baby, who had arrived in Greece by boat and bundling them in a van.

The video then showed the migrants being taken out into the Aegean Sea, transferred to an inflatable raft and set adrift. Turkish coast guard boats are seen rescuing them around an hour later.

Contacted by AFP, Greece’s migration ministry declined comment.

Commissioner Johansson said she made it clear to the country that “there is no place for illegal deportations”, known as “pushbacks”, when speaking with the government one year ago.

The video, which gained traction 48-hours before the polls for the country’s general election opened, added to growing documentation suggesting Greek authorities are actively involved in multiple pushbacks of migrants – illegal under refugee law.

As in previous cases brought to light, the European Commission expressed its “concern” at the latest report, with one spokeswoman saying it “is enquiring with the Greek authorities about this”.

Member states sitting on the south and southeastern outer rim of the European Union, including Greece, have previously complained that they are unfairly burdened with arrivals of undocumented migrants.

They were at the forefront of a big 2015 influx of migrants, many of them Syrians fleeing the civil war, which was reduced when Brussels struck a 2016 financial deal with Turkey to stem the flow.

Efforts by the commission to come up with a revised asylum policy have foundered on the refusal of several EU countries to allow a redistribution of undocumented migrants onto their territories.