Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 4th of September 2020
Case name: 2020_09_04 AEG705
Situation: 54 travelers with 7 children pushed back to Turkey
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea
Summary of the case:

On the 4th of September at 01:45h CEST the Alarm Phone received a call about a boat in distress carrying around 54 travelers, among them 1 pregnant woman and 7 children between the age 1 and 13, possibly all of Syrian nationality. According to the travelers, their petrol was stolen by masked men they assumed to have been the Greek Coast Guards (GCG), who cut their wires and left them adrift. At 03:05h we informed the GCG, however they refused to rescue and claimed that the boat was in Turkish waters. They added that the Turkish Coast Guards (TCG) already knew about the case and would "take care" of it. At 12:55h we received a confirmation by friends of the travelers that they were pushed back to Turkey.

We later got in touch with the travellers again when they were back in Turkey. One of the travellers gave the following testimony about a pushback they experienced only 11 days after the situation we were alerted to, which points to the regularity of these violations against international law and to the amount of violence travellers have to endure when forced to cross the border several times. “We landed in Greece the 15.09.2020. We walked until we saw a police car. We didn’t want to go to the police but they found us. They told us: follow us, we’ll bring you to a safe place. We were 17 people. We walked to a farm. They told us: give us your phones and register here. They searched us also for other things. Which we did. I was pregnant. I thought that I will give birth. They thought I am lying. But they didn’t give us any water and food. Two days later I gave birth back in Turkey. The children and also we were very hungry. A day later they gave us bread. After two days they picked us up, they came with 5 people. They put us on a rubber dinghy and pushed us back in Turkish waters. There we have been picked up by TCG and brought back to Bodrum. I am alone, I raise my six children alone. My oldest child is 13 years old. My daughter is one month and 2 days old. I need support.”