Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 30th of August 2021

Case name: 20210830-AEG812

Situation: 105 people in a sinking boat, rescued by Greek Coastguard, unlclear if pushbacked afterwards

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case:

On the 30th of August at 09:29 CEST we were informed about 105 people going from Turkey to Italy. After several tries, we reached the people on the boat who told us that water was entering their boat, they asked us to call the Greek Coastguard. The Greek Coastguards said they would do something. At 11:15 CEST the people on the boat told us that the Greek Coastguard is already there since two hours without doing anything. At 13:48 we had another call with the people on the boat who were crying because a lot of water was entering their boat and the Greek Coastguard still didn’t do anything. At 14:56 CEST the people on the boat texted us that the Greek Coastguard finally took them on their vessel. AT 18:05 the Greek Coastguard claimed they would still be searching for the boat, but there is footage of a coastguard vessel approaching the boat. At 18:31 we write an email to the Greek Coastguard kindly telling them that they should not pushback the people. At 19:23 a relative informed us that the people on the move were arrested in Greece by the Greek Coastguard. Afterwards we could not establish contact with the people again, so until now we do not know if they were rescued or pushed back, while the Greek authorities refused to tell us what happened.

Twitter timeline:

https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1432315102590550017