3 yıl önce

Marchers in Greece protest migrant pushbacks, border violence

Close to 700 people marched from Omonia square following news that Turkiye found dozens of frozen bodies close to the Greek border.

AP

Protesters, who gathered after a call from anti-racist groups, shouted slogans against "the assassination of migrants at the border".

Hundreds of people have marched through central Athens to protest what they say are Greece’s pushbacks of migrants and refugees at the border with Turkiye.

According to Greek police, around 700 people marched on Sunday from Omonia Square at the centre of Athens to Syntagma Square in front of the Greek parliament.

They carried a life raft resembling the ones allegedly used by Greek authorities to push back asylum seekers from Greek territory.

Protesters, who gathered after a call from anti-racist groups, shouted slogans against "the assassination of migrants at the border" and held banners reading "Stop pushbacks and border violence".

In Syntagma Square they observed a minute of silence for the migrants who lost their lives.

AFP

Protesters on February 6 carrying a life raft resembling the ones allegedly used by Greek authorities to push back asylum seekers.

‘Designed to discourage’

The protest followed a similar one on Saturday in Istanbul organised by Turkish humanitarian groups who marched to the Greek consulate to protest the recent deaths of 19 migrants near Turkiye’s border with Greece

Last week, Turkiye said it found 19 frozen bodies close to the Greek border, accusing Greece of allowing the migrants to die in the winter cold after stripping them of their clothes and forcing them back across the border.

Human rights groups believe such actions, reported by migrants in different parts of the world, are designed to discourage fleeing people from trying to enter a particular country and to look for a different route.

Turkiye and international human rights groups have repeatedly condemned Greece's illegal practice of pushing back migrants and asylum seekers, saying it violates humanitarian values and international law by endangering the lives of vulnerable people, including women and children, as Turkiye continues efforts to rescue those migrants and asylum seekers.

Greece has denied the accusations, despite evidence piling on the pushbacks.

Turkiye is a major crossing point for migrants and asylum seekers from the Middle East, Asia and Africa seeking a better life in European Union countries.

Most try to cross into Greece by either crossing the northeastern land border or cramming into smuggling boats headed for the eastern Aegean Sea islands.