Greek police are recruiting masked migrants to forcibly push other migrants back across the border with Turkey, according to news reports.

The reports by local media and the BBC say that police in Greece have been recruiting migrant ‘mercenaries’ to violently push other migrants back across its land border with Turkey.

The first claims of the practice emerged in 2022, reported by the Netherlands-based news organisation Lighthouse Reports.

The latest BBC reports cite internal police documents in which guards describe how the recruitment of so-called mercenaries was ordered and overseen by senior officers.

And reports from eyewitnesses talk of migrants being stripped, robbed, beaten and even sexually assaulted.

Pushbacks – forcing migrants and asylum seekers back across borders without due process – are generally considered illegal under international law.

An investigation begun by the not-for-profit Consolidated Rescue Group (CS) produced disturbing videos allegedly showing migrants being mistreated by mercenaries.

The BBC reported that one border guard told a disciplinary hearing they had information, reported to their superiors, that mercenaries had been raping female migrants.

It also said it had interviewed two migrants and an ex-mercenary who say they saw extreme violence by both mercenaries and Greek police, including people being beaten until they passed out; and that a migrant said a masked man took off her daughter’s nappy in the hunt for valuables.

Greece has seen well over a million migrants arrive since 2015 – chiefly through sea crossings but also along its land border with Turkey.

This land frontier runs 200km along the Evros River and marks the outer edge of the European Union, separating Greece’s Evros region and the Turkish territory of East Thrace.

This means refugees or irregular migrants crossing the river into Greece enter a heavily militarised restricted zone, dotted with watchtowers.

A police source told the BBC the mercenaries are themselves migrants, recruited from countries including Pakistan, Syria and Afghanistan, and that they can be rewarded with cash and mobiles looted from other migrants, as well as papers that effectively allow their passage through Greece.

The Greek prime minister told the BBC he was “totally unaware” about allegations of the use of migrants for pushbacks.