1. In late March, such strange images started to circulate. During the last six weeks, @NiamhKTabbal and I have been investigating the story behind them. Today @just_security publishes our work.

https://www.justsecurity.org/70309/tents-at-sea-how-greek-officials-use-rescue-equipment-for-illegal-deportations/

2. According to reports, these were Greek border enforcement agents, deporting asylum seekers by sending them adrift. But were these reports real?

The image reminded us of a deportation vessel, Australia used several years earlier to launch migrants back to Indonesia:

3. As we obtained photos, discovered Greek procurement records, and discussed with @ABoatReport, it became clear: the tent-like structure, unlike the Australian custom-made deportation missile, was made for rescue. The Coast Guard repurposed the life raft for clandestine removals

4. But the Australian precedent was still in the background. With the help of Phevos Simeonidis, we found the Australian machinery had been advertised to the Greek people earlier on.

5. More testimonies began to emerge of the novel deportation practice. We were ultimately able to obtain detailed information on 11 such incidents. We received photos of families landing on islands at dawn, officials in surgeon masks later pushing them to crowded life rafts.

6. By far the most remarkable visual material that @NiamhKTabbal was somehow able to obtain is footage shot from the interior of one such liferaft. Worth accessing the story just to look at these heartbreaking images, taken in a matter-of-fact way of documenting one's own journey

7. But our project, is not simply about cruelty. The floating tents are a kind of metaphor for the refugee’s condition. The act of pushing migrants to drift at sea in liferafts reflects the broader EU contemporary response to the “refugee crisis” – rejection and abandonment.

8. Thanks to everyone who helped (e.g. @YannisKalpouzos gave an excellent critical reading of an early draft). We are particularly grateful to our editors at @just_security: @violagienger, @randledefalco, and @rgoodlaw.

9. For additional reading, see @ForensicArchi's study of Australia'd deportation infrastructure, done in collaboration with @GLAN_LAW, a few years back: https://www.gold.ac.uk/media/images-by-section/departments/research-centres-and-units/research-centres/centre-for-research-architecture/Live-Project_CRA_2017.pdf

See also @TSpijkerboer's article on "the global mobility infrastructure": http://thomasspijkerboer.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/EMIL_020_04_05-Spijkerboer-pre-correction.pdf