ATHENS – Just days after talking about holding down refugees and migrants trying to reach Greece, Turkey’s Coast Guard again accused Greek forces of pushing them back in the Aegean Sea and said it had rescued 122 people.

Turkish officials said they discovered them in Turkish waters, picking up 87 from a small boat off the coast of the Karaburun district in Izmir and 35 small off the nearby coast of Menderes, reported Info Migrants.’

https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/53828/turkey-accuses-greece-of-pushing-back-migrants-once-again

The refugees were taken to the provincial migration department, according to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency, the alleged incidents coming in the wake of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsoakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meeting in Athens.

Human rights groups, activists and major media reports have claimed that Greece’s Coast Guard and hooded men have pushed back refugees and migrants at sea, and provided video evidence, Greece denying everything.

In May, European Union authorities called on Greece to launch an independent inquiry after video footage purporting to show a forced pushback was released but nothing came of it and there’s been no information since.

The Greek Council for Refugees noted in a country report that “a total of 230,993 third-country nationals in 6,736 incidents were ‘prevented from entrance’ in Greece in just the first 10 months of 2022,” the report said.

Greece’s Ministry of Public Order said, “256,000 persons were prevented from ‘illegal invasion’ in 2022,” and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government has said it wants to keep out refugees and migrants, Greece already holding several thousand on island and mainland detention camps.

The Greek Refugee Council stated in its report that “cases of alleged pushbacks have been systematically reported in 2022, as was the case in 2021,” when the COVID-19 pandemic was in full force, holding down the numbers.