We have spoken to two Syrian migrants who claim to have been forced back to Turkey, across the River Evros.
Amal (not her real name) showed us videos and documentation of her family in Greece, where they had applied for asylum.
Her family, she says, was unexpectedly detained by police in 2025 while walking through the city of Orestiada, in northern Evros.
They were handed to two masked men who demanded they surrender their phones and IDs before driving them to the border in a windowless white van.
A further search at the river was far worse, she says.
“My daughter was wearing a diaper, they took it off,” Amal says. “She was screaming in fear.”
Next, she says, the masked men, who now numbered roughly seven, herded them and about 20 others down a track, using sticks to keep them in line.
