Bashar Deeb

Der Spiegel — A Libyan militia belonging to the warlord Khalifa Haftar hunts down refugees in the Mediterranean and drags them to Libya. DER SPIEGEL reporting shows how Frontex and Maltese officials are involved.

lighthousereports.com — President Bashar al-Assad is demolishing opposition neighbourhoods in order to create a shiny new Syria - one in which dissent never existed - and reward his cronies with the spoils

Der Spiegel — Hundreds of refugees died when their ship sank off the coast of Greece. Sixteen survivors accuse the Greek Coast Guard of having caused the disaster - and inconsistencies in the investigation file raise even more questions: Are the Greeks trying to cover up their role?

lighthousereports.com — Italy lied about its role in a shipwreck that killed 94 people - including 35 children - and the EU border agency Frontex helped cover it up

Der Spiegel — Seit Jahren behauptet die kroatische Regierung, nichts mit den illegalen Pushbacks von Flüchtlingen zu tun zu haben. Nun legen die Nachrichten aus einem inoffiziellen WhatsApp-Chat nahe, dass das womöglich nicht stimmt.

lighthousereports.com — First visual evidence of live ammunition being used against asylum seekers trying to reach Bulgaria brings into sharp question the EU's approach to border control

lighthousereports.com — How visual evidence, witness testimony and ground reporting can be combined to prevent a cover up by Spain and Morocco

Der Spiegel — New reporting exposes how Greek police are exploiting refugees to engage in illegal pushbacks of other would-be asylum-seekers at the EU's external border. Witness testimony, satellite images and other documents provide evidence of how officials are taking advantage of people seeking protection.

The Guardian — n January, a cargo ship flying the Honduran flag disappeared from international tracking systems off the coast of Cyprus. When it reappeared a week later, the Sea Navigator was heading north to Europe. But the ship had not got lost - it had slipped into a Russian-controlled port in Syria to pick up phosphates, a key ingredient for making fertiliser.

Der Spiegel — An extended investigation over the course of several months reveals how deeply the EU's border agency, Frontex, is involved in the Greek refugee pushback campaign. The illegal acts are registered and concealed in a classified database. Kommentare öffnen Zur Merkliste hinzufügen Amjad Naim had almost reached Samos when the men wearing the balaclavas arrived.

POLITICO Europe — If there's one positive outcome of the war in Ukraine, it's that the response to the more than 3 million refugees who have left the country is setting a benchmark for what a humanitarian response can and should look like.

The Guardian — he Syrian regime is bulldozing former rebel-held neighbourhoods in Damascus under the guise of mine clearance to make space for a "new Syria" of upmarket new building developments and pristine gardens.

Der Spiegel — The new dead are buried in the back, close together, in the farthest corner of the cemetery. Three men shovel soil onto the coffin. The only sound is the crunch of their shovels. Then they place a plaque on the grave. The date of death is noted on it, above the letters N.N., nomen nescio, name not known.

Der Spiegel — You can hear the blows before you can see them. The noise of blunt objects striking arms, legs and backs filters through the thick shrubbery on the border between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. People screaming in pain, gasping and whimpering. Powerful men in dark uniforms are standing on the Croatian side of the border on this hot June day.

Der Spiegel — At sunrise, Alek Musa was still in good spirits. On the morning of June 25, 2020, he crowded onto an inflatable boat with 69 other people seeking asylum. Most of the refugees were Sudanese like him. They had left the Libyan coastal city of Garabulli the night before.

Lighthouse Reports — CREDITS Natalie Allison, Bashar Deeb, Giorgos Christides, Klaas van Dijken, Katy Fallon, Ana França, Emmanuel Freudenthal, Heiner Hoffmann, Daniel Howden, Steffen Lüdke, Mitra Nasar, Maximilian Popp, Nick Waters, Logan Williams, Phevos Simeonidis REPORTED WITH FROM THIS INVESTIGATION SIMILAR INVESTIGATIONS Illegal pushbacks in the Aegean aren't rogue actions of the Greek national coast guard but operations undertaken with the support or connivance of an emerging EU super agency Since March 2020, Lighthouse Reports has been investigating illegal pushbacks and human rights abuses at Europe's external borders.

forensic-architecture.org — When Turkey mobilized refugees and migrants to cross into Greece, reports emerged that Greek forces had responded with live fire, causing casualties. We confirmed that, despite Greece's denials, automatic rounds were fired from the Greek side of the border and one person, Muhammad al-Arab, was shot dead near a group of armed Greek soldiers.

Bellingcat — Introduction In recent months, disturbing reports have emerged of unidentified masked men on high speed launches harassing or attacking boatloads of asylum seekers in the Aegean. Witness testimony gathered from multiple sources has described a string of incidents where these launches, known as Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIBs), have approached vessels carrying men, women in [...]

Bellingcat — Translations:English (UK)Русский (Россия)The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has been investigating strikes in Afghanistan for the past five years. It has been a struggle. Issues from sheer danger on the ground to a near-total lack of transparency from the U.S. and Afghan armed forces have made the job difficult.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism — Masih ur-Rahman Mubarez's life changed in a single moment. It took eight months to find out why. In the early hours of September 23, 2018 a bomb struck his house, killing his wife, seven children and their four teenage cousins. Both the US and Afghan militaries - the only forces carrying out air strikes in the country - denied responsibility.

Bellingcat — Samos And The Anatomy Of A Maritime Push-Back Refugees and migrants have all but stopped arriving on Greek islands amid mounting reports of maritime push-backs. In April of 2020, the UN Refugee Agency recorded a single landing with 39 people. During the same period in 2019, there were 1,856 arrivals by sea.

Lighthouse Reports — CREDITS Nour Abuzaid, Dimitra Andritsou, Giorgos Christides, Lola Conte, Bashar Deeb, Klaas van Dijken, Daniel Howden, Peter Keizer, Stefanos Levidis, Steffen Lüdke, Maximilian Popp, Kishan San, Mark Stone, Christina Varvia, Nick Waters, Eyal Weizman, Youri van der Weide, Leone Hadavi REPORTED WITH FROM THIS INVESTIGATION SIMILAR INVESTIGATIONS The death of a Pakistani man during a standoff at the Greek-Turkish border raised serious questions.

The Guardian — When Ahmed landed in darkness on the Greek island of Lesbos he was convinced that the road ahead could not be as hard as the one he had just travelled. But, instead of the volunteers and blankets that have met hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers before him, he was greeted by a jeering crowd of locals and had to be rescued by police.

Bellingcat — These findings were made by Benjamin Strick, Leone Hadavi and Bashar Deeb and are a result of a year-long investigation stemming from the EU Arms Project, an investigative collaboration between Bellingcat and Lighthouse Reports. Special thanks to Francesca Costantini who helped us analyse Italian Government reports.