27/07: 30 travelers, reportedly pushed back after 4 days on Rhodes

28.07.2020 / 18:25 / Aegean Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 27th of July 2020
Case name: 2020_07_27-AEG691
Situation: 30 travelers pushed back to Turkey after four days on Rhodes
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On July 27, 2020 at 01:55h CEST the Alarm Phone received a message about a boat in distress carrying 30 travellers, including 10 children of whom one baby was only one month old. We managed to reach the travellers by phone who told us they were in urgent distress and sent us their position.

We immediately alerted the Turkish coastguard who seemed to know about the boat already. Only at 3:30h, the Turkish coastguard informed us that they had rescued the travellers, and soon after the travellers confirmed to us that they had been taken to Turkey.

We later learned from the friend of the travellers who had initially alerted us, that the group had in fact arrived to Rhod0s four days before the distress situation we were alerted to.

On Rhodos, the mother of the newborn baby had been hospitalised and the doctor's assessment was that she should stay in hospital for at least a week. However, according to the friends of the travellers, in the evening of the 26th the group of travellers were told that they would be taken to another location in Greece. Following this, they were put on a bus, driven to the coast, and here forced to enter a rubber boat which was then abandoned in the sea.

Last update: 10:00 Mar 30, 2021

Credibility:

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