• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

EU executive demands probe into alleged migrant pushbacks in Greece, Croatia

October 7, 2021 by David Barret Leave a Comment

October 7, 2021

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union’s executive called for an investigation on Thursday into illegal migrant pushbacks after a report by German media outlets Der Spiegel and ARD documented what they said were Greek and Croatian officials carrying out such operations.

The joint report said Greek and Croatian special forces sometimes concealed their identity during such operations, which at times were violent.

“Some of these reports are shocking,” the EU’s Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said, adding that she expected a thorough investigation of the issue.

Johansson was due later on Thursday to meet the Greek and Croatian interior ministers, who are in Brussels for two days of talks with their EU peers, and would urge them to take the matter “very seriously”.

She said the evidence presented in the report seemed very credible, that people on the EU’s borders were being subjected systematically to violence and that EU money was being misused to support forces that commit such “unacceptable” acts.

The German media report said it had video footage of 11 pushbacks by Croatian police into Bosnia and also evidence including footage of the Greek coast guard forcing migrants back into the Aegean Sea.

Reuters has not independently verified the allegations.

Croatia’s Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said the police would conduct an investigation. He added that Croatian border police acted in line with the law and did not tolerate any abuse of authority.

The migration ministry in Athens denied reports of migrant pushbacks and said it operated within international law to protect Greek and EU borders.

Under international law, people have a right to claim asylum and it is forbidden to send potential asylum-seekers back to where their lives or well-being might be in danger.

But these principles have often been ignored in Europe in recent years amid periodic surges in the number of migrants fleeing wars or poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Frontline states in the migrant crisis such as Greece and Italy have often felt overwhelmed and have at times sought to force people arriving irregularly to return to where they came from without assessing each case individually.

AFGHANISTAN

Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have recently allowed their border guards to perform such pushbacks after a sharp increase in crossings from neighbouring Belarus of irregular migrants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Cameroon and Congo.

Johansson said there was no evidence of an increase in Afghan arrivals to the 27-nation EU “just yet” since Kabul fell to Taliban insurgents in August.

However, she said Afghans had fled in larger numbers to neighbouring countries that had already been hosting up to six million Afghan refugees before the Taliban took over.

Johansson said EU countries had so far evacuated 22,000 Afghans and needed to increase resettlement offers for 2022 for the most vulnerable people, including unaccompanied minors.

“We know the situation in Afghanistan is very dire… there is a huge risk of famine,” Johansson said, adding the bloc must step up humanitarian assistance on the ground as well.

Filippo Grandi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, has asked the EU to take in some 42,500 Afghans over five years.

But the issue of mainly Muslim immigration from Afghanistan, the Middle East and North Africa has become a hot-button issue in the EU, where many people oppose admitting more people.

(Additional reporting by Karolina Tagaris and Igor Ilic, Writing by Gabriela Baczynska, Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source Link EU executive demands probe into alleged migrant pushbacks in Greece, Croatia

David Barret
David Barret

Related posts:

  1. Twitter is testing big ol’ full-width photos and videos
  2. Salesforce backs Indian payments startup Razorpay
  3. Democrats to include suspension of U.S. debt limit in funding bill
  4. London police officer from diplomatic unit charged with rape

Filed Under: News

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • DNA From Greenland Sled Dogs – Maybe The World’s Oldest Breed – Reveals 1,000 Years Of Arctic History
  • Why Doesn’t Moonrise Shift By The Same Amount Each Night?
  • Moa De-Extinction, Fashionable Chimps, And Robot Surgery – No Human Required
  • “Human”: Powerful New Images Mark The Most Scientifically Accurate “Hyper-Real 3D Models Of Human Species Ever”
  • Did We Accidentally Leave Life On The Moon In 2019 – And Could We Revive It?
  • 1.8 Million Years Ago, Two Extinct Humans Had One Of The Gnarliest Deaths In History
  • “Powerful Image” Of One Of The World’s Rarest Tigers Exposes The Real Danger In Taman Negara
  • Evolution, Domestication, And A Lot Of Very Good Boys: How Wolves Became Dogs
  • Why Do Orcas Have White Spots Near Their Eyes?
  • Tomb Of First King Of Ancient Maya City Discovered In Belize
  • The Real Reason The Tip Of Your Tape Measure Wiggles Like That
  • The “Haunting” Last Message From NASA’s Opportunity Rover, Sent From Inside A Planet-Wide Storm
  • Adorable Video Proves Not All Gorillas Hate The Rain. It Might Even Win One A Mate
  • 5,000-Year-Old Rock Art May Show One Of Ancient Egypt’s First Rulers
  • Alzheimer’s-Linked Protein Levels “20 Times Higher” In Newborn Babies – What Does This Mean?
  • Americans Were Asked If They Thought Civil War Was Coming. The Results Were Unexpected
  • Voyager 1 & 2 Could Be Detected From Almost A Light-Year Away With Our Current Technology
  • Dams Have Nudged Earth’s Poles By Over 1 Meter In The Past 200 Years
  • This Sugar Could Be A Cure For Male Pattern Baldness – And It’s Been In Our Bodies All Along
  • “Cosmic Immigrants”: Daytime Star Seen In 1604 May Be An “Alien Type Ia Supernova”
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version