I.110 The Evros/Meriç River: A Century of Border Design
Date of Incident
1926 - 2025
Location
Evros/Meriç river, Greece/Turkey
Forums
Web Platform
In Partnership With
Self-Initiated
First drawn a century ago, the border that separates Greece from Turkey along the Evros/Meriç river at the EU’s southeastern frontier is deadlier and more opaque than ever. FA/Forensis built an interactive platform that unpacks this complex and lethal border infrastructure, and examines the present-day condition of the border against the transformation of the river landscape over the past century.
I.95 The Pylos Shipwreck
Date of Incident
13.06 - 14.06.2023
Location
Mediterranean Sea, Greece
Forums
Media, Web Platform
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
On 14 June 2023, a boat carrying hundreds of migrants sank inside the Greek search and rescue zone in the Mediterranean Sea—the deadliest migrant shipwreck in recent history. Our digital reconstruction of the boat and mapping of its trajectory reveal inconsistencies in the Hellenic Coast Guard’s (HCG) account and indicate that over 600 people drowned as the result of a failed towing by the HCG.
I.91 Fire in Moria Refugee Camp
Date of Incident
08.09.2020
Location
Lesvos, Greece
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition, Media
Commissioned By
Lawyers for the Moria 6
The fire which destroyed the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos was at least the 247th outbreak to have occurred in and around the overcrowded camp since 2013. Six young asylum seekers who came to be known as the 'Moria 6' were accused of arson and jailed. FA and Forensis reconstructed the fire’s spread, casting significant doubt on the basis for those convictions.
I.88 Restituting Evidence: Genocide and Reparations in German Colonial Namibia
Date of Incident
1904 - 1908
Location
Otjozondjupa, Omaheke, and Khomas, Namibia
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
The Ovaherero/Ovambanderu Genocide Foundation (OGF), Forensis
From 1904–1908, Germany committed genocide against the Herero, Mbanderu and Nama peoples in their colony of ‘South-West Africa’ (present-day Namibia). FA/Forensis partnered with genocide activists from descendant communities to begin to produce a body of digital evidence that can be leveraged in support of demands for land restitution and reparations.
I.84 Drift-backs in the Aegean Sea
Date of Incident
March 2020 - Ongoing
Location
Aegean Sea
Forums
Legal Process, Human Rights Report, Media, Parliamentary Inquiry, Web Platform
In Partnership With
Forensis
Asylum seekers crossing the Aegean Sea are intercepted within Greek waters or arrested after they arrive on Greek shores, beaten, stripped of their possessions, and then forcefully loaded onto life rafts and left to drift back to the Turkish coast. FA/Forensis verified and mapped evidence for over 2000 such ‘drift-backs’, demonstrating the scale of this violent and illegal border defence practice.
Remote Sensing⤵
Often, investigators do not have access to the site of the incident they are investigating. In such instances, we rely on remote data, such as satellite and aerial images.
Comparative analysis of ‘before’ and ‘after’ images help us to identify transformations on the ground, and different ‘optical bands’ and graphic indicators such as Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI) can give us detailed information at a distance.