Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 19th of September 2022

Case name: 2022_09_19 -Eastern Med - 1009

Situation: Pushback

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Eastern Med

Summary of the Case:

At 08.19 CEST we are alerted by a relative to a group of travellers close to the island of Rhodes. We don’t manage to reach the people on board, but we nonetheless immediately inform the Greek and Turkish authorities by email. The relatives tell us at around midday that the travellers have been taken to a small rocky islet by the Hellenic Coast Guard (HCG). We are told that the HCG has beaten them, taken their money, IDs, and all but one of their mobile phones, which they had managed to hide, has been taken. Shortly after, we receive a call from one of the people in the group, at 12.15 CEST, and they share a live location with us on WhatsApp showing they are on Seskli islet. We tell the group to call 112 and ask for help, then we lose contact with them. At 12.40 CEST, the live location indicates they are on Symi island. We then lose contact again. AT 14.47 CEST, we call JRCC Pireaus, who tells us only "we are investigate, no news. Okay ?". At 15.06 CEST, we call the police station on Simi and give the location of the group. At 20.35 CEST, we send another email to authorities and UNHCR. Neither us or the relatives have heard from the group in eight hours. At 22.08 CEST, the relative tells us they have received a new location from the group, that they are in Turkish waters and were put in a boat and pushed back by HCG, so we immediately inform the Turkish Coast Guard (TCG). At 23.00, we receive a live location from the group, though we cannot reach by when we call. We share a screen shot of it immediately with the authorities by email, and the TCG calls us for an updated position. In the morning we receive that the group was found by the TCG and taken back to Turkey, and so it is clear another pushback took place.

We later collected a testimony from one person in the group, a widowed single mother and her two children, who were beaten and traumatised by the violence they faced during the pushback.

"First, I am a Palestinian from the refugee camp in syria alsham . My dream was to guarantee a safe life for my daughters and to give them a homeland because as a Palestinian I do not have a homeland. My husband died in Syria when I was pregnant with my daughter in the third month.

This is the sixth attempt in which I have been pushed back with the same extreme violence. I contacted people in Istanbul to join them in next trip. They contacted me late and I was afraid this time because soon, the light will come out. I was afraid of being late and with daylight there will be much risk of the presence greek coast guard.

When we boarded the rubber boat, I was surprised by the huge number of people, about 35 people in small boat. The trip usually lasts 5 hours, but the captain of the boat does not understand anything about the GPS. We spend about 3 hours and after several attempts we arrived near Rhodes. And quickly the Greek guards arrived.

There was a boat in which 6 men directly threatened us with weapons, they dismantled the engine, they took the gasoline and they kept threatening us with weapons, if we move they will kill us, they would shoot us. They were dressed in black uniforms and there were two hooded persons. I really do not remember the details of the boat because I was terrified and afraid for my daughters. They took the engine and gasoline and left us in the water in the rubber boat from five in the morning until about 11.30. Then another Greek patrol boat came,it was orange and grey, not all masked, all dressed in black. There was a person wearing a white shirt. I can't remember the details because I was terrified and looking after of my daughters and trying to calm them in this terrefic situation. I hide the phone and they took us a lot far away until they reached a rocky island. I tried to call Alarm Phone and sent the location via WhatsApp and I sent my position, which referred to the island, while we were on the boat at sea. we were  beaten, insulted and threatened with weapons for all this time and refused to tell us where they will take us or to gave water to the children. Then a big gray warship came. They took us on it. The commandos were all in military clothes. They also took the rubber boat in which we started traveling. There was in another rubber boat attached to the warship. They took us very violently. They threw us from the boat to the warship. They violently took the children. They alerted an electronic inspection machine, they took all the phones and everything that was with us. I could not hide anything, except a Turkish SIM card, and another very young girl hided a phone in the warship before getting inspected. They beat us with sticks and threatened us with weapons on a continuous basis. They refused to give us water for the children or even to eat. Even the children were severely beaten with sticks and they took off the veils of women in very violently way, but at end we managed to get hidden phone after a big teamwork. We were always asking where they will take us, but the answer was to beat us.

On that day we knew that there was a strong storm. At about two o'clock in the morning we were following the weather news before the start of the journey and we were alerted about the storm. The commandos were moving away from land.

Everything was forbidden: to eat,to ask for  water, if you speak you got beaten. Also it was very cold so we asked for blankets for the children. They refused and beat us. At two o'clock in the morning the storm and the high wave started.

The children were asleep, and suddenly the commandos woke up everyone even the children  by a beating, and they threw one by one into our inflatable boat from the high barge. We were about 67 people in the 2 boats who were in bad condition due to the salt and from throwing people from a high distance from the barge. They divided the people between the two boats, a boat for families and a boat for the youth. There was a young man who helped me with my daughters because I was completely exhausted. We tried to communicate with the barge because in the storm this is an inevitable death, but they refused and we took the phone and sim card and called the Turkish Coast Guard, which came quickly due to the seriousness of the situation. We were also terrified of the situation because there was a group of young people not present in the two boats.

The Turkish guard took us to their center tonight, and then they took us to another police station, and there we found the friends who were missing. They said they were thrown into a rubber boat and lost without a phone for one day until turkish coast guard found them.

On the third day, they took us out, Turkish police  took my tourist residence card, and now to settle my situation, I have to go to a remote center far from Istanbul for 14 hours, which is impossible in my situation.

My daughters are in a very difficult psychological situation,there is nothing to do for them  not even the possibility of going to school.

Their psychological situation has deteriorated since the third attempt where we get a violent push  back, as we were subjected to a return by the Greek commandos and we were thrown into a boat where the water was entering and we miraculously survived. 

Can you imagine how all of this affected my daughters, my eldest daughter is 10 years old and my youngest is 8 years old? Can you imagine your whole childhood as a tragedy? My dream was that my daughters will  live better than me, but in the end my daughters suffered more than me."

At 18.22 CEST on 19/9 https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1571897649762009096

At 10.45 CEST on 20/9 https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1572144971821506560

Turkish media - https://en.sg.gov.tr/61-irregular-migrants-were-rescued-off-the-coast-of-mugla-21-9-22