Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 7th of December 2018

Case name: 2018_12_07-AEG468
Situation: Distress situation at Greek-Turkish land border
Status of WTM Investigation: Closed
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Friday the 7th of December 2018, the Alarm Phone was contacted at 5.53am CET by a contact person and informed about a group of 19 people who had crossed the Evros river to Greece and needed assistance. The youngest in the group was 14 years old, the oldest 55 and they were from Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, and Morocco. They were scared of being pushed back. Shortly after, we received their GPS position. Their position showed that the closest was is Ellinochori. We tried to reach the group directly but were unable to do so. Shortly after we were able to receive all of their names and we forwarded the list to the UNHCR.

At 9.16am, the group told us that they were all sick and travelling for 5 days already. We exchanged directly with the UNHCR at 9.20am and one of their staff members tried to contact the group, confirming at 10.14am that they were working on the case and had established contact. At 1.15pm, the group confirmed that they were still at the same location. They were unable to move on as some were injured. We provide them with details of the closest hospital but at 2.32pm they told us that they were too scared to go out in the public as they feared a push-back by the police. As the situation worsened, they called an ambulance for the injured in the evening but according to them the hospital staff did not react. We called the hospital and they said they would call the police and were generally uncooperative throughout.

Despite trying repeatedly, we were unable to reach the hospital during the night. At some point, we were also not able to re-connect with the group until the next day, 8th of December, at 5.35pm. In that conversation the people stated that they were hungry and that it was cold, but they were too scared to go into the public realm. At 6.30pm we spoke again to the emergency services and they said they would send the police to find the group. We discussed this with the group and although they were scared of being pushed-back, they agreed, also as we had alerted other organisations, such as the UNHCR, to the situation to prevent a push-back. At 10.02pm, the hospital stated that they had informed the police but the police had not found the group.

On the 9th of December, at 00.50am we contacted the police department in Didymoteicho but they refused to state whether they had knowledge of the group in question. Throughout the day, we tried to reach the group and gather more information from different authorities but were unable to do so.

Only later did we find out that all people were back in Turkey. We lost contact to them but this appears to have been yet another illegal push-back along the Greek-Turkish border.