Implementing Safi and Others v. Greece: Urgent need for measures to protect migrants’ right to life
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Last month, the Council of Europe anti-torture Committee (CPT) published the findings of its 2023 visit to Greece highlighting ongoing concerns about pushbacks and the treatment of migrants by Greek authorities.
The report details credible and consistent allegations of physical abuse by coastguard officials during interceptions at sea, where the coastguard's operational decisions and delays contributed to the tragic loss of life. Its findings suggest that such practices are not isolated incidents but part of a broader pattern of ill-treatment and disregard for the safety and rights of migrants.
The CPT’s concerns only echo those already raised by multiple international sources. According to the December 2023 Frontex SI report 12595/2023 on the tragic Pylos shipwreck (of which only 104 of the 750 passengers of the boat came out alive), the Greek authorities, responsible for coordination of assistance, failed to timely answer Frontex’ calls - having initially notified Frontex that further assistance was not needed -, and also failed to declare a search and rescue and to deploy sufficient appropriate assets in time to rescue the migrants in distress. These operational shortcomings mirror the failures identified in the Safi case, concerning the ineffective investigation into a coastguard operation in 2014 in the Aegean Sea during which eleven relatives of the migrant applicants, who were aboard a fishing boat, drowned. In that case, too, the rescue was also planned without appropriate equipment, and the possibilities of requesting additional assistance and sending a "Mayday Relay" alert were either not considered or significantly delayed.
Furthermore, in February 2024, in response to the systematic pushbacks and violence against non-EU nationals, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Greece criticising the lack of progress in the judicial investigation and the treatment of migrants at the external borders.
Pushback operations and the abuse of migrants’ rights by the Greek authorities continue to come under the scrutiny of the ECtHR. In the January 2024 judgment of Alkhatib v. Greece, the ECtHR identified violations of the right to life due to the lack of an adequate legal framework on the use of potentially lethal force against migrants by the coastguard boat during a pursuit to intercept a boat and the inadequate planning of the rescue operation.
The Safi case is pending implementation before the Committee of Ministers since 2022, yet the ongoing documentation of pushbacks and the lack of proper safeguards for migrants intercepted at sea reinforce the ECtHR’s concerns, demonstrating that similar violations continue taking place. The Greek authorities should urgently take all possible measures to safeguard the lives of those seeking refuge in Europe. In the meantime, the Committee of Ministers remains one of the last weighty international institutions still turning a blind eye on the systemic nature of these shortcomings revealed in Safi by continuing examining this case under the standard supervision procedure, despite numerous calls by civil society organisations to place it under the enhanced supervision procedure (see, inter alia, the joint submissions of the AIRE Centre, HIAS Greece, and Equal Rights Beyond Borders, as well as of Refugee Support Aegean and Stiftung PRO ASYL of September 2023). It is high time that the CM stepped up its response to rise to the occasion.
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