Greece faces sanctions imposed by the European Union today over its failure to eliminate its “violent and intimidating” practices of pushing back refugees and migrants at its borders. The case took tremendous dimensions following a new highly denouncing report that was published by Amnesty International, under the title “Greece: Frontier of Hope and Fear”. “The treatment of refugees and migrants at Greece’s borders is deplorable”, says John Dalhuisen, the human rights watchdog’s Europe and Central Asia program director. “There are cases where they have been stripped naked, had their possessions stolen, and even held at gunpoint before being pushed back across the border to Turkey”, stresses further.    

148 migrants and refuges have been interviewed for the needs of the report, between September 2012 and April 2014.

Push-back practices occurred regularly along the land border at Evros, at the northeastern Greece and the Aegean Sea islands of Lesvos, Chios and Samos, according to the report.

Last January, a group of 11 Afghans and Syrians, eight of whom were children, died when a boat carrying 27 migrants sank near the island of Farmakonisi.