Dozens of migrants have reportedly crossed from Turkey into Greece via the river Evros. According to Greek radio, a total of 138 migrants, including a large number of children, were found by border guards and rescue teams on a small islet on the Greek side of the river.
Frontex, the European Union's border and coast guard agency, is collecting information from migrants that could end up identifying vulnerable people seeking sanctuary from persecution in their homelands, according to a report by the EU's data protection watchdog.
A significant number of persons from main asylum countries were turned away at Germany’s borders. Refugee rights groups say these are 'clear indications that the federal police are illegally rejecting people seeking protection'.
Greece has been accused of pushing back refugees by allegedly abandoning them at sea, leaving them for Turkish authorities to deport them back to Turkey.
A video published by the New York Times last week captures Greek authorities abandoning migrants at sea, a violation of international law.
Two Afghan refugees and a Pakistani national have won their cases against the Hungary at Europe's top human rights court. Two of them had been detained for months, the other had been violently pushed back to Serbia. The judges ruled that Hungarian authorities violated their human rights.
The EU border agency Frontex said it is expecting a record number of people to attempt irregular crossings into Europe this year, adding that poverty and climate change were the main driving forces behind migration -- rather than conflict.
A group of 17 Syrian migrants, including eight children, have been rescued by police from a small island in the Evros River in north-eastern Greece. They were taken to a pre-removal detention center near the Turkish border.
The investigative journalism project BIRN reports that Croatia has been carrying out mass expulsions of migrants to its neighbor, Bosnia. The two countries claim the returns are lawful under a bilateral agreement.
France is pushing back even unaccompanied minor migrants at the Italian border at Ventimiglia, the head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mobile clinic assisting migrants in transit between the two countries told ANSA in an interview. This kind of pushback is a violation of regulations in place, Sergio Di Dato noted.
Human Rights Watch says the EU routinely turns a "blind eye" to brutality toward migrants and asylum seekers. Pushbacks have long been the "standard operating procedure" for Croatia’s border police, the watchdog added.
On Wednesday, Lithuania enshrines so-called pushbacks in law. The move has been heavily criticized, but it is not without precedent in the EU.