Press Release

Another crime, following the Pylos shipwreck, has occurred this time off the coast of Chios, where the Hellenic Coast Guard (HCG) pursued a boat carrying refugees and collided with it.

A tragedy occurred on the night of Tuesday, 3 February 2026 off the coast of Mersinidi in Vrontados, eastern Chios, following a collision between a vessel of the Hellenic Coast Guard and a boat carrying refugees.

The Greek Parliament must reject any proposal to abolish residence permits for unaccompanied children who have reached adulthood in Greece and successfully completed three years of education in Greek schools.

Over 70 organizations are co-signing a joint statement regarding the new bill proposed by the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum.

Throughout October, numerous deadly shipwrecks and violent maritime interceptions occurred near Lesvos and other Aegean islands. These incidents led to preventable deaths, people going missing, and survivors reaching the islands in a state of severe psychological distress.

By order of the Prosecutor of the Reviewing Court, criminal proceedings are to be brought against four senior officers of the Coast Guard, including its current chief, whose case had been shelved by the prosecutor of the Piraeus Naval Court, and the survivors had lodged an appeal against the shelving.

In a complaint submitted on 11 September, four civil society organisations call on the European Commission to immediately initiate legal proceedings against Greece’s three-month suspension of the right to asylum and immediate deportation applied to people arriving from North Africa by sea.

The Mechanism for Recording Incidents of Informal Forced Returns (Recording Mechanism), established by the Greek National Commission for Human Rights (GNCHR) to strengthen objectivity and reliability in reporting incidents of informal forced returns from Greek territory, is releasing its 2024 Annual Report.

Athens, 14 July 2025 – The Racist Violence Recording Network (the Network) is increasingly concerned by a noticeable shift in public discourse towards xenophobia, racist rhetoric, and diminishing adherence to fundamental principles of the rule of law, in the context of migration and asylum management in the country.