130 migrants pushed back by Greece rescued

İZMİR

The Turkish Coast Guard has rescued 130 migrants pushed back by Greece off the Aegean province of İzmir.

Coast Guard units identified that the migrants who tried to cross illegally to the Greek islands were pushed into Turkish territorial waters by being put on life rafts and rubber boats by Greece.

Some 130 migrants who were stranded off İzmir’s Çeşme, Dikili and Menderes districts were taken to the shore and sent to the Provincial Directorate of Migration Management.

Greece pushed back nearly 42,000 asylum seekers between 2020 and May 31, 2022, according to a report published by Türkiye’s Ombudsman Institution.

“Some 98 percent of the pushbacks involved torture and ill-treatment, and 88 percent of the 8,000 asylum seekers who came to the Greek border were beaten up,” the report said.

The report stated that 53 irregular migrants in 2021 and 33 others in 2022 lost their lives, either drowned or froze to death, due to pushbacks.

Türkiye has been a key transit point for asylum seekers who want to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution.

Türkiye, which already hosts over 5 million refugees, more than any country in the world, is taking security measures within and on borders to prevent an influx of migrants.

Between January and Sept. 15, more than 200,000 irregular migrants have been caught in Türkiye while the number of irregular immigrants deported from Türkiye in 2022 soared to nearly 100,000, according to the Directorate General of Migration Management.