Greece says BBC report does not prove coastguard threw migrants overboard

Greece rejected Monday a BBC investigation that alleged its coastguard caused the deaths of dozens of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe, denying accusations it had broken international law.

In an investigation published on its website on Monday, the BBC counted 43 migrants it said had died in the Aegean Sea after being turned back by Greek coastguards between May 2020 and May 2023.

Nine of the dead were deliberately thrown overboard, the publicly funded British broadcaster added.

Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis denied the claims.

"We monitor every publication, every investigation, but I repeat: what has been reported is in no way proven," he said, adding the coastguard "saves dozens of human lives each day".

Greece has long been accused of carrying out illegal operations to force back migrants braving the perilous crossing from Turkey's western coast in the hope of reaching the European Union.

Though Athens has always denied the practice, numerous investigations by international media and rights groups have documented its existence, often with video evidence.

The BBC said its investigation examined 15 such pushback operations over a three-year period.

As well as basing its reporting on local media, NGOs and the Turkish coastguard, the BBC was able to interview eyewitnesses.

They include a Cameroonian national who said he and two other migrants were arrested after landing on the island of Samos in September 2021.

He said the police forced them onto a Greek coastguard boat, beating them as they went, before throwing them out into the water.

He was the only one to survive, with the bodies of his two companions -- an Ivorian and another Cameroonian -- washing up on the Turkish coast.

The eyewitness's lawyers are calling for the Greek authorities to open a double murder case into the incident.

The EU said it was aware of the "terrible allegations".

"Greek authorities, as in all EU member states, must fully respect obligations under the asylum and international law," European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer told journalists in Brussels.

Tens of thousands of migrants, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, have entered Greece in recent years from the sea and land borders with Turkey.

The International Organization for Migration has declared the Mediterranean passage the world's most perilous migration route.

In 2023, a migrant trawler with hundreds of people on board sank off the Greek coast, killing more than 600 people in one of Europe's deadliest shipwrecks.

The survivors have filed a criminal complaint against the Greek coastguard.

They allege that the coastguard took hours to mount a response to the sinking ship, despite warnings from EU border agency Frontex and the NGO Alarm Phone.