Migrant boats: Is the Greek coast guard changing tack?

The number of migrants arriving in the Greek islands is on the rise, with reports of several boats arriving on Lesbos within just a few hours on Tuesday (July 25). By early afternoon, the Greek coast guard had confirmed one of these incidents, reporting that it had picked up a group of 36 foreigners who had been adrift off Lesbos.

In a press release, the coast guard said the migrants had been in a rubber boat, and that one of them had slashed the inflatable hull once they were within sight of the Greek patrol vessel. The group was taken to Mytilene.

Also read: Greek coast guard pick up dozens of migrants off Karpathos island

Their arrival at the Lesbos port was noted by Aegean Boat Report (ABR), a Norwegian campaign group which monitors migrant arrivals and rights violations, including illegal pushbacks at sea.

Just a few hours later, another group of about 50 migrants also reported to ABR that they had been picked up by the coast guard.

There were about 15 children on board, they told ABR. The people on the coast guard vessel were wearing black masks, and they confiscated everyone’s phones. Having encountered this behavior in the past, the migrants reported that they were scared of being forced back to Turkey.

When ABR monitored this group’s location using WhatsApp, they could see that they were not being taken in the direction of Turkey but were heading straight for Mytilene harbor. “We are quite confident that the group was taken into port, and not pushed back,” ABR wrote on Twitter.

Will the trend last?

The Greek coast guard, regularly accused of illegally forcing migrant boats back into Turkish waters, even abandoning them on rafts in the middle of the Aegean Sea, appear to have “drastically changed their tactics,” ABR said Tuesday.

“[Authorities] have started picking up boats that are close to land, taking them ashore, and those who manage to arrive on the Greek islands are no longer hunted down and pushed back, they are allowed to stay.”

ABR said the trend may be short-lived but for now it is borne out by the group’s own figures: While arrivals over the past five weeks have increased by 190%, it said that pushbacks decreased over the same period by 90%.

“It is a positive development, most certainly,” ABR tweeted, adding they’re “not that confident” whether or not it will last.