Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 20th of April 2022

Case name: 2022_04_20-AEG883

Situation: 42 travellers stranded for many days, one woman died, pushed-back to Turkey

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Eastern Med

Summary of the Case:

In the morning of the 20th of April 2022, Alarm Phone was called by a group of 42 people, about half men and half women, including one pregnant woman, and 12 children including 6 under 5’s, all stranded on an Islet on the Evros river. They related to us that they had been stranded since days, and sadly, during the night, a woman from the group with several medical conditions had died. They had been on the islet without shelter and had ran out of food and water. One child of 5 months was extremely dehydrated as he refused any intake since yesterday morning. The group had rung 112 to ask for help, but they didn't receive help.

We immediately alerted the Greek authorities, along with the UNHCR, Refugee Council and NGOs at 09:45 CET, to ask for anyone to help this group in distress. That afternoon at 13:50 the stranded group messaged us to say that they saw the Greek police boat coming towards them, and ever since they were no longer reachable. We called the Greek police throughout the day and night, but they refused to communicate with us and hung up the phone every time.

The next day we received news that the group had in-fact been pushed back to Turkey.