BVMN asserts that incidents of arbitrary detention and pushbacks of migrants recorded by our partners across the Western Balkans, Greece and Turkey, and multiple other monitoring bodies, demonstrate that EU Member States are conducting widespread and systematic enforced disappearances at external borders, in accordance with the definition set out in the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances (ICPPED). Since 2017, BVMN has documented over 1,500 testimonies reporting the arrest, detention and forcible removal of 24,990 migrants by persons or groups acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of EU Member States, frequently in conditions which conceal the whereabouts of migrants and place them outside the protection of the law.

BVMN condemns the use of new technologies by EU Member States and the EU for the purpose to facilitate and perpetrate incidents of enforced disappearances at external EU borders and target human rights defenders (HRDs) who are engaged in monitoring these crimes. BVMN has recorded incidents of pushbacks conducted by the authorities of a total of 15 different countries, 10 of which are EU Member States. Those countries are: Austria, Italy, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece.