Twelve migrants, including women and children, loaded onto a boat and left adrift. It is the shocking video, published exclusively by the New York Times, which accuses Greece of carrying out the push-backs it has always denied.
The facts depicted in the video date back to last April. The first images see the group of migrants getting off from the back of a white van, in the middle of the countryside. The following see the same people boarding a Greek Coast Guard boat that then abandons them on a lifeboat off the coast, in violation of European and international regulations.
The video of the migrant boat drifting was captured by an Austrian activist who then shared it with the American newspaper.
The New York Times tracked down and spoke to 11 of the migrants, from Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea, forced to leave Greece by the Coast Guard.
The newspaper reports that asylum seekers, from the refugee camp in Izmir, Turkey, where they are after being rescued by a Turkish Coast Guard patrol boat, said they were afraid of dying. Many were still wearing the same clothes they had in the video. Among them was a six-month-old baby. They said they were forced to board a dinghy and sent adrift.
The use of these inflatables without engines had been documented in the past, but the Greek authorities have always denied leaving migrants on board.
The New York Times also attempted to get a comment from the Greek government on the matter, but preferred not to release it as the country approaches elections that favor Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Sunday. The same one who promised a strict immigration policy if it is confirmed.