Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 5th of July 2018

Case name: 2018_07_05-AEG405
Situation: Two groups at the Turkish-Greek landborder, 14 travellers pushed back to Turkey
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Turkish-Greek landborder

Summary of the Cases: On Thursday, 5th of July, The Alarm Phone assisted two groups of travellers in the Turkish-Greek border zone. One group of 14 travellers was pushed back to Turkey.

At 8:46am CEST, we were alerted to a group of 14 people in a forest close to the Greek town Didimoteicho and the landborder to Turkey, among them 3 women and 2 children. We couldn’t establish a connection to the group as their phone was switched off. At 11:04am, the contact person forwarded us a new position. After managing to reach the group, we informed the NGO Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) at 12:31am and sent them a list with the names of the travellers. At 1:28pm the GCR informed us that they had contacted the group and informed local and regional authorities as well as the UNHCR. At 2:43pm the group informed us that still no assistance had arrived. We informed the GCR and asked the group to call 112 in case of emergency. At 3:40pm GCR informed us that the police would send a patrol car. The group had moved and sent us their actual position which we transferred to GCR. GCR informed the police. At 4pm the contact person informed us that the police had found the group. In the ongoing, we tried to establish contact to the group, but couldn’t reach them any more. Only at 9pm we received new information via the contact person: Reportedly, the police had brought the people back to the border with Turkey and left them on a small islet in the midlle of Evros river without any help. The group reported about violent treatment by the police and that most phones had been confiscated and destroyed. At 9:21 we received their new GPS position. At 10:10pm the group informed us that they were back in Istanbul, Turkey.

At 4pm CEST we were alerted to a group of 12 people stuck in Evros river border zone near Mikrochori, Greece. The group consisted of 8 men, 2 women and 2 children. They were asking for assistance and international protection. We asked them to send us a list of their names. At 6:07pm we received the list. At 6:35am the travellers called us and asked us to alert the authorities to their situation. We hence tried to reach UNHCR Athens, UNHCR Thessaloniki and the Greek Refugee Council, but couldn’t reach any office. At 7:23pm we sent an email to the authorities informing about the group. At 7:43pm we called the local police station but couldn’t reach anyone. At 8pm we established contact to the police call center and passed all relevant information. We sent emails to all police stations in the area to inform them about the presence of the group. At 8:39pm the people contacted us; they hadn’t been found yet. At 10:17pm we called the Evros Police Center again, but they didn’t have news. At 10:21pm the travellers called to inform us that the police had arrived. They were trying to claim asylum. We asked the travellers to inform the police that various organisations in Greece, including UNHCR, had been alerted about them. We sent an email to all police authorities in the area as well as to UNHCR, emphasizing that a push-back of the group to Turkey would be illegal. At 11:45pm we called the police center to investigate but didn’t get information. We couldn’t establish anymore a connection to the travellers and couldn’t find out anything contacting the local authorities and UNHCR. It remained unconfirmed what happened to the group.