Palestinian refugee missing for two weeks after being pushed back by Greek police

A Palestinian refugee has been missing for two weeks, after attempting to cross the river bordering Turkey and Greece.

Bahaa Ahmad Hasan, a Palestinian refugee raised in the Daraa camp in the southern Syrian province of Daraa, has been reported missing since 13 October.

According to the London-based Palestinian Return Centre, a friend of Hasan said that he disappeared after Greek border police forced a group of refugees he was part of to swim back across the river to the Turkish side.

While the other young men amongst that group are reported to be in good health, Hasan has not been seen or heard from since, and his whereabouts and condition remain unknown.

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Over the past few years, Greece has been found to have committed numerous human rights violations against refugees trying to flee from Turkey to its territory.

Throughout the refugee and migrant crisis over the past decade and, especially over the past few years, Greek police and border guards have commit numerous human rights violations against refugees trying to cross into mainland Europe.

Those violations include the pushing back and shooting of refugee boats at sea, leaving refugees stranded at sea, and torturing those that they held at secret black sites on the border and returning them across the river naked. In May, it was revealed that Greece’s pushback and abuse of refugees had killed over 2,000 of them during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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