A Closed Sea: How Turkey and Greece Stop People from Reaching Asylum in Greece - Aegean border violence patterns 2024 and 2025

This is a first of four essays drawing on our new published report that examines border violence patterns on the Aegean Sea based on the Aegean Sea Border Incidents dataset and the Evidence-Based Action For Human Rights At Borders- Methodological Toolkit. 

These systematically document incidents at sea using incident‑level data verified through a four‑tier system and multi‑source triangulation between official statistics, NGO documentation, media reports and IOM’s Missing Migrants Project. By including only events that could be cross‑checked across at least one credible source and classified within this verification framework, the analysis provides a conservative minimum picture of violence and obstruction in the Aegean rather than speculative or anecdotal claims. This first article focuses on how people are prevented from ever reaching the Greek asylum system, particularly through the combined actions of the Turkish Coast Guard and the Greek Coast Guard.

Methodology

The methodological framework applied in this dataset was developed within Collective Aid’s Evidence‑Based Action for Human Rights at Borders project and is detailed in the Methodological Toolkit for border incidents. Every entry in the Aegean dataset represents a single border incident between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2025, coded with variables such as location, actors involved, type of enforcement practice, people affected, children present, deaths, disappearances and criminalisation outcomes. Incidents were only included if they met the criteria of the four‑tier verification system (Single Official, Multisource Official, Single credible non‑official source, Multisource non‑official), which means much of the violence that leaves no trace in public records remains outside the dataset.

Across the two‑year period, the dataset documents 96,913 people affected by Aegean Sea border incidents including 24,876 children, again representing only those cases that could be traced and verified. Within this population, the report identifies a core finding: more people were stopped from accessing asylum procedures than were ever able to register a claim in Greece.

More than half never reach the asylum system

Between 2024 and 2025, the analysis estimates that 152,072 people attempted to reach Greece via the Aegean Sea. Of this total, 69,833 people (48,468 in 2024 and 21,365 in 2025) were registered by the Greek Ministry of Migration as having arrived and entered the asylum procedure. The remaining 82,239 people – accounting for 54.1% of all those attempting to cross – were systematically prevented from doing so through Turkish apprehensions and “rescues” and Greek pushbacks. In other words, more than half of all people who tried to reach Greek territory to seek protection were stopped before they could access an asylum procedure.

The report disaggregates these 82,239 people into three enforcement categories that together describe a continuum of “pre‑entry” and “near‑entry” interdiction. First, 1,877 Turkish apprehension incidents intercepted 50,437 people before they could leave Turkish territory, stopping them from ever reaching EU jurisdiction at all. Second, 538 incidents labelled as Turkish “rescues” returned 14,697 people to Turkey following emergency operations at sea, often after unrecorded Greek enforcement actions had already taken place. Third, 595 Greek pushback incidents forcibly returned 17,105 people from Greek territorial waters or islands back to Turkey, directly cutting them off from the right to reach territory and lodge an asylum claim.

Taken together, these practices constitute an integrated system of denial of access to asylum operating across and between Turkish and Greek jurisdictions, rather than a series of isolated events. People are intercepted before departure, turned back in distress, or pushed away at the threshold of EU territory, but the outcome is structurally the same: no effective access to protection procedures.

Turkey as externalised gatekeeper

The dataset underscores the centrality of Turkish Coast Guard apprehensions as the single largest incident category across the Aegean. Turkish authorities carried out 1,877 apprehension operations during 2024–2025, representing 52.3% of all incidents and resulting in 50,437 people being stopped from departing Turkey. In 2024, 1,236 of these apprehension incidents (48.7% of that year’s incidents) led to 34,296 people being intercepted, while in 2025 the number of incidents fell to 641 (61.0% of that year’s incidents) involving 16,456 people.

These figures reveal that as overall incident numbers declined across the Aegean, the relative weight of Turkish apprehensions increased, confirming that pre‑jurisdictional interdiction has become the primary barrier to accessing the Greek asylum system. This reflects the wider externalisation architecture rooted in the 2016 EU–Turkey Statement, in which Turkey is tasked and funded to prevent departures, backed by EU‑supplied surveillance, patrol assets and operational coordination. For the people affected, this means they are effectively blocked from ever reaching a space where EU asylum guarantees formally apply.

Turkish “rescue” operations further entrench this dynamic. In 538 incidents over the two years, 14,697 people were returned to Turkey following emergency interventions at sea, often in circumstances that the report notes may involve prior, undocumented Greek enforcement acts. For those on board, a rescue that ends in return to the same state they had fled offers no practical route to international protection.

Greek pushbacks as the last line of obstruction

While this first blogpost focuses on access to asylum, it cannot ignore that Greek pushbacks are not only a denial‑of‑entry tool but also a form of direct violence. The dataset records 594–595 pushback incidents over 2024–2025 (the figure differs slightly by analytical section), affecting around 17,000 people, and identifies them as a systematic pattern rather than isolated abuses. As part of the broader enforcement system, these pushbacks complete the “closure” of the Aegean: even if people manage to evade Turkish apprehensions and survive the crossing, they remain at risk of being violently returned from Greek waters or islands.

These pushbacks will be the focus of the second article in this series, which examines the specific violent practices of the Hellenic Coast Guard, including boat chases, gunfire incidents and enforcement‑linked shipwrecks. A third piece will delve into the death toll and disappearances that persist despite fewer crossings, and a fourth will explore how both Greece and Turkey criminalise migration and suspected facilitation as part of this enforcement regime.