Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 6th of September 2020
Case name: 2020_09_06 AEG706
Situation: 65 travelers in distress rescued to Crete/Greece; 27 travelers pushed back to Turkey by Greek and Bulgarian Border Guards
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea
Summary:

On September 6th Alarm Phone was alerted to two distress cases, one on it's way to Italy. The boat carrying 65 travellers was rescued to Greece. A second distress case at the land border between Greece and Bulgaria ended with a push back of 27 people to Turkey and the death of two people of the group, one in Greece and a second upon arrival in Turkey.


Summary Case 1:

On the 6th of September at 08:12h CEST the Alarm Phone received a message about a boat in distress carrying around 65 travelers in distress, including children and women going in the direction of Italy. They said that their engine broke down, their captain abandoned them and the boat was south of Chania near Crete. At 9:35h we informed the Greek Coast Guards (GCG) about the boat. They claimed that they were already aware of the incident because a patrol boat of them has seen them. We were not able to establish contact with the travelers for various hours. At 13:33h we called the GCG who refused to give us information about the boat. At 18:00h we found the following article: https://www.zarpanews.gr/synagermos-sta-chania-skafos-xefortose-deka-metanastes-kai-xanavgike-sta-diethni-ydata-photos/ that claims that the GCG were trying to pull the boat to the harbour. At 19:38h we managed to re-establish contact with the travelers who informed us that they are in quarantine in Greece. On the following day in the morning we received another confirmation from the travelers that they have been rescued to Greece.

Summary Case 2:
On the 6th of September at 06:02h CEST the Alarm Phone received a message about a group of 27 travelers in distress at the Greek-Bulgarian border. According to the travelers, after entering Bulgaria, the border guards took them to the forest, stole their belongings, beat up several individuals of the group sverely and pushed them back to Greece. They explained that they didn't have anything to eat or drink in the past two days and could not walk because one of the women in the group was immobile. They called 112 and reported that they were lost and needed help but nobody came. At 06:58h we informed the Greek authorities via email. Afterwards, it was not possible to reach the travelers for hours. At 16:58h we contacted the local police station, however they did not have any information about the group. At 17:15h the police station of Orestiada confirmed to have searched for the group, but not found them yet. We found the following article: https://www.haniotika-nea.gr/sto-kolymvitirio-akrotirioy-oi-53-metanastes-tis-gaydoy/ stating that they had been rescued. On the following day, friends of the travelers confirmed that they had been brought to a safe place, however they were not sure where. After two days of trying to receive a confirmation from the travelers themselves, we managed to reach a 17-year old boy from the group who said that they were pushed back to Turkey. The Bulgarian and Greek police beat them up, took their money and phones and brought them back to Turkey.

The teenager then shared a testimony with us about another pushback he had enjured on the 26th of September, only 20 days after the pushback case the Alarm Phone was alerted to: “The Greeks took us and they take us again to the Turkish border. There were more people, not only our group. It was really many people they pushed back on that day. There was a lot of police. All with masks like a mafia. One man died when he tried to escape and they shot at him (?). I did not see him dying but other people say they shot the Armenian, because he was too much afraid to be returned to Turkey. The masked men forced us to the water. Some with boats, one big boat with maybe 30-40 people forced onto it, some smaller boats (maybe 10-12 people), but some others had to walk to the water without boat. Then the water became deep and some people could not swim.

Two Syrian women drowned because we could not save them. I don’t know their names, because the women were not from our group, but from another group. Another person we saved him from drowning, he had a lot of water in his mouth. Many people in our group were very young, 16, 17, 18, 19 years only, from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, but also Turkish in this group.

Bulgarians they don’t kill, they only beat a lot. But the Greeks they want to kill us. They killed the Armenian and the two women. They want to do so much, that the people don’t try another time.

I am back now in Istanbul, but I have to try it again. Here we cannot survive. I have to go to my sister in Germany. She lives there since 5 years.”