GREECE – Greece’s main opposition party is demanding an investigation after a BBC report which found the coastguard had caused dozens of migrant deaths over three years, according to witnesses.

Nine migrants were said to have been thrown into the water deliberately. Syriza’s immigration policy chief said: “We demand in-depth investigation, we demand answers, we demand accountability, and the reason we do it is this. “We care about all human life, and we cannot get used to the loss of human life.”

Giorgos Psychogios told the BBC his centre-left party had called for accountability over coastguard incidents for years, after many reports from international institutions and organisations. He accused the government of calling his party “anti-Greek”, “Erdogan agents” and “provocateurs” for asking those questions.

A government spokesperson insisted the BBC’s claims had not been proven, but stressed that every complaint would be checked and conclusions drawn. The coastguard “saves dozens of human lives every day”, Pavlos Marinakis told reporters, adding it was “wrong to target them”. “Reality… has consistently refuted these claims for too many years. “And, in fact, too many times in the past we have seen Greeks being the ones behind the attempt to slander the country.”

A BBC team showed footage previously published by the New York Times of 12 people being loaded into a Greek coastguard boat, and then abandoned on a dinghy, to a former senior Greek coastguard officer. When he got up from his chair, and with his mic still on, he said it was “obviously illegal” and “an international crime”. The Greek government has long been accused of forced returns – pushing people back towards Turkey, where they have crossed from, which is illegal under international law.

But this is the first time the BBC has calculated the number of incidents which allege that fatalities occurred as a result of the Greek coastguard’s actions. The 15 incidents analysed – dated May 2020-23 – resulted in 43 deaths. The initial sources were primarily local media, NGOs and the Turkish coastguard. (BBC)…[+]