This four‑part blog series presents key findings from the 2024–2025 Aegean Sea Border Incidents dataset, a rigorously cross‑verified, incident‑level analysis of border violence patterns. Drawing on Collective Aid’s Evidence‑Based Action for Human Rights at Borders methodology, it first shows how Turkish apprehensions, “rescues,” and Greek pushbacks systematically prevent people from ever accessing asylum in Greece. The second part examines violent Hellenic Coast Guard practices such as pushbacks, high‑speed boat chases, and gunfire incidents, while the third traces how these tactics contribute to persistent deaths and disappearances despite fewer crossings. The final article explores how both Greek and Turkish authorities criminalise people on the move and alleged “facilitators,” turning survivors of border violence into suspects in a system that obscures state responsibility
Read MoreThis four‑part blog series presents key findings from the 2024–2025 Aegean Sea Border Incidents dataset, a rigorously cross‑verified, incident‑level analysis of border violence patterns. Drawing on Collective Aid’s Evidence‑Based Action for Human Rights at Borders methodology, it first shows how Turkish apprehensions, “rescues,” and Greek pushbacks systematically prevent people from ever accessing asylum in Greece. The second part examines violent Hellenic Coast Guard practices such as pushbacks, high‑speed boat chases, and gunfire incidents, while the third traces how these tactics contribute to persistent deaths and disappearances despite fewer crossings. The final article explores how both Greek and Turkish authorities criminalise people on the move and alleged “facilitators,” turning survivors of border violence into suspects in a system that obscures state responsibility
Read MoreThis 2026 assessment in Bosnia examines the material, service, and advocacy needs of displaced individuals in Sarajevo’s TRCs. It highlights significant gaps in basic necessities, healthcare, legal support, and access to information, while documenting widespread experiences of abuse, violence, and systemic mistreatment across borders and camps. The findings provide actionable insights for improving services, strengthening protection, and guiding advocacy efforts to uphold the rights and wellbeing of people on the move.
Read MoreThe Collective Aid International webinar marked the conclusion of its Evidence-Based Action for Human Rights at Borders project, presenting a transferable methodological toolkit for systematically documenting and verifying border violence in the Aegean Sea using multi-source data from 2024–2025. The pilot dataset recorded over 3,600 incidents affecting 82,239 people — including widespread pushbacks, 263 deaths and disappearances, and 100 shipwrecks — underscoring patterns of violent enforcement and the urgent need for rigorous, harmonized monitoring frameworks across border contexts.
Read MoreThe position paper shows how EU return policies and plans for “return hubs” in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are already producing arbitrary, prolonged detention, poor conditions and blocked access to asylum and legal safeguards for people on the move. It calls on the EU, its member states and both governments to halt return hubs, end detention as a default migration tool and invest in rights‑based alternatives such as fair asylum procedures and safe pathways, and these findings are discussed in more detail in our newly published webinar recording.
Read MoreOn the night of 3 February 2026, a boat carrying people on the move capsized off Chios after a collision with a Hellenic Coast Guard vessel, leaving at least 15 dead and many others — including children and pregnant women — with injuries more typical of a high‑speed traffic crash than a simple shipwreck. Conflicting accounts from survivors, medical staff and officials, together with missing or inactive onboard recordings and the rapid criminalisation of a Moroccan survivor as the alleged “smuggler,” have turned this tragedy into a test case for transparency, accountability and the wider deterrence‑based border regime in the Aegean.
Read MoreIn January 2026, as Iran entered one of the deadliest government crackdowns in its modern history,. In January, we have also met Iranian men during distributions in Bosnia whom have shared their firsthand experiences of repression, violence, and loss under the Islamic Republic. These conversations took place amid a near-total internet blackout, as families were cut off from one another and reports of mass killings emerged. By sharing these stories in their own words, we aim to bear witness and stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and others facing state oppression.
Read MoreIn this article, we examine Britain’s underreported proposal to deport failed asylum seekers to North Macedonia. We situate the plan within the dynamics of the Balkan migration route and assess its feasibility in light of North Macedonia’s role as a short-term transit country, its extremely low rate of asylum applications, and documented practices of pushbacks and abuse. The article outlines the legal, logistical, and humanitarian flaws of the proposal, questions its deterrent effect, and considers the risk that such a scheme would further endanger people on the move while strengthening smuggling networks and misusing public funds.
Read MoreAs winter returns to Bosnia and Herzegovina and the wider region, Collective Aid’s field team in Sarajevo is deeply alarmed by the rising number of deaths and disappearances of people on the move along the Balkan route. Freezing temperatures, treacherous river crossings, and the absence of coordinated rescue efforts continue to claim lives, outcomes driven not by chance, but by political decisions that prioritise deterrence over protection. This piece documents recent fatal crossings, unreported deaths, and the ongoing suffering of families left without answers, highlighting how silence, impunity, and exclusionary border policies turn rivers into borders of death.
Read MoreMen on the move are among the most criminalised, excluded, and misunderstood people within migration systems today. Too often portrayed as threats rather than individuals seeking safety, they are routinely left out of protection schemes, denied empathy, and erased from humanitarian responses. This piece challenges harmful and gendered narratives, exposes how structural exclusion is built into migration policy and practice, and asks a critical question: why does protection so often stop at gender, and what are the consequences when it does?
Read MoreThis comparative analysis examines systematic violence at the Croatia-Bosnia and Hungary-Serbia borders, revealing how both frontlines, despite divergent political narratives, operate as zones of legal exception where pushbacks, surveillance technology, and detention serve as deliberate migration management tools. Drawing on firsthand experience and policy analysis, it exposes the institutionalized brutality underlying Europe's border regime.
Read MoreThis article examines the experiences of second-generation Albanian migrants in Greece, revealing how complex bureaucratic procedures, errors in documentation, and constantly expiring residency permits shape personal identity, belonging, and access to life opportunities. Through detailed personal stories, historical context, and connections to the contemporary Greek asylum system, it highlights how migration bureaucracy, administrative categories, and legal precarity profoundly affect individuals’ ability to live, work, and envision a stable future within Greek society.
Read MoreThe UK and the EU may have parted ways politically, but their migration regimes are becoming strikingly similar. Both are advancing systems built on deterrence, externalisation, and the steady erosion of the right to seek asylum. As the EU rolls out its new Migration Pact, hailed as a “success” merely because border crossings have dropped, the human cost is pushed out of view. At the same time, the UK is deepening the same logic through restrictive reforms and negotiations with Kosovo to establish return hubs, echoing the EU’s growing network of outsourced border control. Rather than diverging paths, the UK and EU are reinforcing one another, creating parallel systems that narrow protection, increase precarity, and treat people on the move as disposable.
Read MoreWe’re sharing the recording of our recent webinar on the Dead and Missing: Serbia Report, held with Klikaktiv and No Name Kitchen (NNK). The webinar explored systemic neglect, institutional silence, and structural violence surrounding the deaths of people on the move in Serbia.
Our knowledge-mapping report, Erased in Life and Death, documents border deaths, burial sites, procedural gaps, and the crucial work of grassroots actors and communities in preserving memory and dignity. The report includes a first-of-its-kind map of named and unnamed burial sites, case studies across multiple municipalities, and reflections on the limited engagement of intergovernmental organisations.
Read MoreAt Collective Aid, our advocacy is grounded in the lived realities of displaced communities and focuses on three interrelated issues that reveal the functioning of Europe’s border system: deaths and disappearances, detention, and so-called voluntary returns. These are not abstract concerns- they are urgent, observable outcomes of policies that sort people into categories of value and disposability. In this issue, we explain why we choose to focus on these issues now.
Read MoreThe New EU Pact on Migration and Asylum reshapes Europe’s borders, institutionalizing detention, deportation, and restricted access to protection. While framed as a reform, it prioritizes control over human rights, leaving asylum seekers vulnerable and frontline states overwhelmed. This blo post highlights the Pact’s real-life impact and calls for solidarity, advocacy, and action to defend the rights and safety of people on the move.
Read MoreExamining the EU’s migration policies, this blog exposes the hypocrisy and exclusion embedded within Europe’s purported values of human rights and solidarity. It highlights how systemic biases shape the treatment of refugees, with access to protection often determined by race, nationality, or perceived “Europeanness,” revealing a deeply uneven and discriminatory approach to migration management across the continent.
Read MoreIn the late summer of 2025, in an informal living site - incredible story captures both the resilience and heartbreak of people on the move in Europe today.
This piece offers a window into Hassan’s life: from his days as an ambitious university student, to the violence and humiliation faced across borders, to the quiet humanity that persists even in the harshest conditions. His story reminds us that behind every policy, there is a person with dreams, loss, and unyielding hope.
Read MoreOn August 14th, a fire broke out in Obrenovac asylum center. A woman we knew - a mother, wife, and friend - was trapped inside. Her husband and children escaped, but she suffered severe burns and passed away on September 22nd, 2025.
Her death was not an accident. It was the result of systemic neglect in Serbia’s camps: unsafe facilities, non-functional fire alarms, inadequate medical care, and authorities’ silence - the same neglect that has already cost lives in Sjenica and displaced families from Krnjača.
We will not forget. We will not forgive. Her memory will inspire our continued fight for justice.
Read MoreFive years after the Moria fire, the scars remain. What happened on Lesvos in September 2020 was not an accident but the outcome of years of deliberate policies of containment, neglect, and deterrence. Instead of accountability for unsafe and degrading conditions, six Afghan youths - the “Moria 6” - were scapegoated in flawed trials, only cleared this May.
Today, the promise of “No more Morias” remains impossible. Closed, remote camps like Kara Tepe and the planned Vastria facility continue the same model of exclusion and control. Remembering Moria means rejecting these policies and calling for accountability.
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