05/07: Two groups at the Turkish-Greek landborder, 14 travellers pushed back

06.07.2018 / 22:23 / Turkey - Greece land border

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.
Credibility: UP DOWN 0
Layers »
  • Border police patrols
     
    While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
  • Coastal radars
     
    Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
  • Exclusive Economic Zone
     
    Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
  • Frontex operations
     
    Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
  • Mobile phone coverage
     
    Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
  • Oil and gas platforms
     
    Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
  • Search and Rescue Zone
     
    An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
  • Territorial Waters
     
    A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans

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