19 migrants found dead from cold at the border with Greece

Nineteen migrants were found dead in the Turkish village of Pasakoy, in the immediate vicinity of the Greek border, according to a report by local authorities announced Thursday, February 3. The day before, the Turkish Minister of the Interior had mentioned a group of “22 migrants pushed back by Greek customs officers, stripped of their clothes and shoes”. “The number of bodies that we have discovered in the search operations (…) unfortunately amounts to 19”, the governorate of Edirne (northeast) said on Wednesday, explaining that they were “frozen to death”.

Ankara regularly accuses the Greek authorities of illegally pushing migrants back to Turkey trying to cross the border. Athens in turn accuses Turkey of turning a blind eye to people trying to cross into Greece, in violation of the March 2016 agreement. The latter provided for a real effort by the Turkish authorities to limit migration from their territory, by exchange of six billion euros in financial aid from the EU.

Between February and March 2020, tens of thousands of people gathered along the land border between the two countries. They were prevented from crossing and sometimes turned back by Athens, which accused Ankara of having knowingly opened the passage to put pressure on the European Union. Turkey currently hosts nearly five million refugees on its territory, according to the official count, including nearly four million Syrians.