Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 18th of September 2022
Case name: 2022_09_18-Eastern Med - 1008
Situation:
 Group of travellers pushed back to Turkish waters by Greek assets
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Eastern Med
Summary of the Case:

On the 18th of September we received messages from relatives about a boat in distress. They stated that at around 9:00 CEST, the boat has been heading towards Rhodos, with more than 30 travellers on board. They reported that after the group had been intercepted by another boat, they had lost contact with them. The last position showed the group had been very close to Rhodes, in Greek waters. Since then, no further contact with the travellers had been possible. We were also not able to establish contact to the boat.

At 21:01 CEST, we sent an email to the Greek authorities, and at 21:10 CEST also called JRCC Piraeus. They stated they received our email but did not have "any incident" near Rhodos.

At 23:28 CEST, we called the Turkish coastguards as we feared this case might have ended in a pushback. They told us that an air plane observed a pushback by Greek Coastguard involving life rafts, and that they have sent a coastguard ship to this area.

The next morning, Turkish Coastguard confirmed a rescue of a life raft and a rubber boat at 00:35am local time with 48 people in total, off the coast of Muğla’s Datça district. They stated that these people reported to have been pushed back to Turkish territorial waters by Greek assets.

Unfortunately, we could not establish any contact to the travellers to get details about this pushback.