Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 22nd of May 2018

Case name: 2018_05_22_AEG392
Situation: People missing at Greece-Turkey land border, pushed back to Turkey
Status of WTM Investigation: Closed, confirmation needed
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Tuesday May 22, at 10:37pm, the Alarm Phone received a call from a man searching for his friends, including 3 men, 2 women, and 4 children, who had reached Greece at the Evros River already in the morningtime, before he lost contact with them. At 10:13pm, the Alarm Phone attempted to reach the police stations in Feres and Soufli, but there was no answer, so the Alarm Phone sent the caller contact info for the border police and UNHCR, suggesting the man call back later, if he had no success in finding his friends. The Alarm Phone followed up with the man on May 23rd at 9:40am. The man still had not received news, but called the Greek police, who only spoke Greek. The Alarm Phone sent an email to UNHCR on his behalf, detailing the names of the people, and a Greek-speaker called the Greek police, but was unable to reach them. The Alarm Phone communicated with UNHCR. Only on the next day, May 24th, the Alarm Phone was finally able to reach the Greek police and alert them to the missing people. At 1:56pm, the Alarm Phone received news from the father of one of the missing people that the family had been pushed back to Turkey by the Greek Police already.