Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 2020
Case name: 2020_06_08AEG676
Situation: 50 people attacked presumably by Greek coast guard near Lesvos, rescued to Turkey
Status of WTM Investigation: Still investigating
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea
Summary of Case
In the morning of June 8th, Alarm Phone was alerted to a boat in distress carrying around 50 people, including 20 women, eight children and two toddlers. People in distress reported that they had been attacked by a vessel they assumed to belong to the Greek coast guard, who took their money, destroyed their engine and beat people on board. According to the people in distress they could see four vessels in the vicinity, among them a boat flying the Spanish flag which had been taking videos of the people in distress but had not intervened. This vessel might have been a vessel belonging to the mission of Frontex. After the first emergency alert, contact to the boat broke and could not be re-established until afternoon of the same day.

Meantime, a relative of people on the boat had reached out to us, and passed us a location from approximately 9:00h CEST. The location was in Turkish waters. We called the Turkish coast guard at 10.40h to pass on this position, who confirmed the rescue of 47 people at around 09.40h CEST but did not have details on the number of women or children on board. According to the officer, there were no other ongoing rescues or distress situations in the area. Since the number of people was close to our information, we assume this may be the case that had reached out to us.

At 13.02h CEST we received a Whatsapp message from a person on the boat, stating that they had been taken to detention in Turkey.
Alarm Phone is still investigating the detailed developments and will include potential updates into this report.