CLOSE to 10,000 people were forcibly pushed back across the Aegean Sea to Turkey last year by the Greek coastguard and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), according to a human rights monitoring organisation.

Mare Liberum, a German NGO which, until recently, monitored migrant and refugee crossings between Turkey and Greece using a ship of the same name, published a report today showing an “unprecedented escalation” of human rights violations in the Aegean Sea last year.

Between March and December, the Greek and EU authorities were responsible for 321 pushbacks involving 9,798 people, the report says.