Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 11th of August 2018
Case name: 2018_08_11-AEG410
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to two groups of travellers at the land border between Turkey and Greece, one group pushed back by Greek police
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Saturday the 11th of August the Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to two groups of people close to the land border between Turkey and Greece, one group on the Greek side, and one group on the Turkish side. The travellers on the Greek side were pushed back to Turkey, and both groups were detained in Turkey for several days.

At 4.11pm CEST we received a message from a contact person, who alerted us to a group of 13 Palestinian travellers who had just crossed the land border between Turkey and Greece and feared being pushed back to Turkey. Amongst the travellers were nine children and one pregnant woman. The travellers were already in a Greek police station. We received a list of the names of all of the travellers to use as documentation that these people had reached European territory, which we forwarded to UNHCR. At 5.07pm the contact person informed us that the travellers were being brought back to Turkey. The following day at 11.16am we were informed that the travellers were being held in a Turkish police station, and had been told that they would be released on Tuesday.
At 4.33pm we were alerted by a contact person to a group of 27 travellers, amongst them families with children, who were lost in a forest in Turkey close to the Greek border. The contact person had last spoken to the travellers the day before in the morning, where they had already run out of food and water. The contact person forwarded us their last known position and their phone number, but we were not able to reach them. At 9.33pm the contact person informed us that most travellers had been found and were being held by the police in Istanbul. However, six of the travellers managed to make it to Greece. After trying without success to figure out where the travellers were being held, the contact person informed us two days later that they had been released.