No Safe Crossing: Deaths and Disappearances in the Aegean Sea Border Regime -Aegean border violence patterns 2024 and 2025

This is a third 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 third article focuses on deaths and disapperances that took place on the Aegean Sea between 2024 and 2025. 

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.

Fewer crossings, but lethal risk persists

Between 2024 and 2025, the total number of incidents recorded in the Aegean fell by 59%, from 2,552 incidents in 2024 to 1,052 in 2025. Over the same period, the number of people affected dropped by a similar proportion, from 68,439 to 28,473, and the number of children involved declined from 17,624 to 7,252. On the surface, this might suggest a “safer” border with fewer dangerous crossings,  but the mortality data tell a very different story.

Across both years, the dataset records 213 confirmed deaths (114 in 2024 and 99 in 2025) and 50 people missing (40 in 2024 and 10 in 2025), for a total of 263 fatalities. While confirmed deaths declined by 13% and missing persons by 75%, the persistence of more than two hundred deaths amid a 59% drop in incidents reveals a concentration of lethal risk rather than its disappearance. As the report notes, these figures demonstrate that reduced crossings did not reduce lethal risk; instead, the Aegean remains an extremely dangerous maritime frontier where deaths and disappearances continue at an “unacceptable” level.

Behind every number lies a person who was not only denied the right to seek asylum but also the right to life itself. Many of these deaths occur in contexts where responsibility is deliberately obscured, at night, in remote sea areas, during unrecorded enforcement operations, yet the dataset still manages to establish a direct link to Greek maritime enforcement in a significant portion of cases.

Deaths directly linked to pushbacks and boat chases

One of the clearest findings of the report is that at least 54 deaths during 2024–2025 were directly caused by Greek pushbacks and boat chases. This figure emerges from the combination of 12 deaths in 5 fatal pushback incidents and 42 deaths in 17 fatal boat chases recorded in the dataset. In each of these incidents, the available evidence allows investigators to connect the fatalities to specific coercive enforcement tactics, such as high‑speed ramming, forced manoeuvres in rough seas, or abandonment in unseaworthy vessels or life‑rafts, rather than to “natural” hazards alone.

The shipwreck analysis deepens this picture. As noted in the previous blogpost, 32% of all documented shipwrecks (32 incidents) occurred during Greek enforcement operations, including 3 shipwrecks during pushbacks and 29 shipwrecks during boat chases, affecting 756 people in total. While not all of these incidents led to deaths or disappearances, the overlap between enforcement tactics and vessel loss illustrates how practices like high‑speed pursuit and forced turning directly destabilise already fragile boats.

When enforcement‑linked fatalities (the 54 deaths tied to pushbacks and chases) are set against the total of 213 confirmed deaths, they account for roughly a quarter of all recorded deaths in the Aegean during 2024–2025. Given the evidentiary threshold required for inclusion in the dataset, it is reasonable to assume that this is a lower bound: incidents with suspected enforcement involvement but insufficient proof, or cases where evidence has been suppressed or lost, fall outside the statistical picture even if survivors insist on a different narrative.

Disappearances in an opaque enforcement environment

The 50 missing persons recorded in the dataset represent another layer of the Aegean’s lethal reality. In some cases, people are registered as missing following shipwrecks where bodies are never recovered; in others, they vanish after enforcement incidents or in contexts where survivors report individuals falling overboard during chases or forced disembarkations. The sharp drop from 40 missing in 2024 to 10 in 2025 does not necessarily indicate a genuine decrease in disappearances but may also reflect changes in reporting capacity, media attention or survivors’ ability to testify after rapid deportations or detention.

What the dataset can say with certainty is that every missing person corresponds to a family left without answers and a system that has failed to uphold basic obligations to search, rescue and investigate. The report calls for every death and unexplained disappearance in the Aegean to become the subject of a credible, independent investigation with those responsible held to account, warning that ignoring or minimising fatalities is not an option under international and EU law.

Children and the geography of lethal risk

Children are not spared from these dynamics. Across 2024–2025, the dataset documents 24,876 children affected by Aegean Sea border incidents, accounting for around 26% of all people recorded. Children appeared in 2,620 incidents across the full spectrum of deadly enforcement tactics, including pushbacks, boat chases and shipwrecks. Notably, this 25%+ proportion of children remained stable even as overall volumes declined by 58%, suggesting not a reduction in their exposure to border violence but a concentration of vulnerability among those who continue to attempt the crossing.

The geography of risk has also shifted in response to enforcement. Since pushbacks became systematic, people increasingly choose more dangerous routes and times – travelling in poorer weather or heading for darker, rockier landing points further from established patrol patterns – in an attempt to avoid detection. On Lesvos, for example, the report notes a move away from two earlier dominant landing spots towards a wider range of more treacherous locations. These adaptations make the sea crossing intrinsically more dangerous and help explain why deaths and disappearances remain high even as the absolute number of incidents falls.

The final blogpost in this series will examine how, instead of acknowledging the structural role of enforcement in producing these deaths and disappearances, Greek and Turkish authorities increasingly resort to criminalisation, targeting people themselves and those accused of “facilitation” through investigations, prosecutions and detention.