The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) as well as 10 other civil society organisations, published the Protecting Rights at Borders (PRAB) report “Pushing Back Responsibility“, which documented over 2000 illegal pushbacks. The European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCH) defines pushbacks as “a set of state measures by which refugees and migrants are forced back over a border without consideration of their individual circumstances and without any possibility to apply for asylum”. The PRAB report covers the time period from January to April 2021 and mainly focuses on pushbacks in Italy, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia-and-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Hungary.

According to the report, 2,162 people (13% of which are children) were stopped at European borders and sent back by law enforcement personnel or the border and coast guard. 176 of the pushbacks were considered chain push backs which meant that several countries cooperated in the transferral of migrants across borders. According to EU law, push backs are illegal and a clear violation of human rights.

The report also documents testimonies detailing the treatment migrants faced before being sent back. More than a third of migrants reported human rights violations; 31% reported denial of access to asylum procedures, 24% reported physical abuse and assault, and 27%  reported theft, extortion or the destruction of property.

Siberian migrants who were pushed back from Hungary and Romania explained that they had been bitten by dogs set on them by the border guards. They reported physical abuse such as slapping and kicking, as well as being punched and beaten with police batons. Most migrants there had been forced to sit or kneel on the ground despite rain and snow. Some stated that their phones had either been confiscated or destroyed.

At the French-Italian border, asylum seekers were detained for the night with insufficient water, food, medical assistance, and blankets. They were denied the right to apply for asylum as well as the right to interpretation. Furthermore, there were at least 300 instances where underage migrants were identified as adults despite them presenting valid IDs.

PRAB partners also reiterate that the real number of pushbacks is likely to be much higher than the number mentioned in the report. This is likely due to a high number of pushbacks going unreported and because some migrants choose not to mention their pushback for fear of it affecting their possible future asylum. On the 5th of May the Guardian reported that over the last year there have been at least 40,000 asylum seeker push backs throughout Europe, going on to state that the deaths of over 2000 migrants were linked to the pushbacks.

The report concludes by recommending that an independent border monitoring mechanism should be set up which will ensure that human rights violations at borders are monitored sufficiently. PRAB partners commented that:

“Good Faith Is Not Enough to Ensure That Border Management Is Human-rights Compliant.”

PRAB states that the monitoring mechanism must be transparent, independent of national authorities, and have independent funding. It must be able to investigate pushback allegations effectively and guarantee access to justice. Finally, it must ensure accountability and enforceable consequences, should a government ignore pushbacks.