Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Katy Fallon, Klaas van Dijken, Bashar Deeb, Jack Sapoch and Mohannad Al-Najjar

Revealed: Greek police coerce asylum seekers into pushing fellow migrants back to Turkey

Silhouettes of two men by an inflatable boat next to a river
Migrants by an inflatable boat on the Evros river in Turkey, waiting to cross over to Greece. Local people in border villages talk of asylum seekers who ‘work’ for police. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP

In a militarised border zone, in the dead of night, asylum seekers say they have been coerced into violent, illegal pushback operations run by Greek police.

Kept locked up between operations, the asylum seekers claim they were forcibly recruited or lured there by a Syrian man living in a container in the yard of a Greek police station, and then used as boatmen to ferry other migrants back to Turkey.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.