Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 3rd of April 2022

Case name: 2022_04_03-Eastern Med_878

Situation: 1 traveller critically ill, Greek police pretend not to find him but actually imprison him and force him to Turkey

Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded

Place of Incident: Eastern Med

Summary of the Case:

In the middle of the night of the 3rd of April 2022, Alarm Phone received a call by a distressed relative, alerting us to 1 man who was in a critical state in a forest close to Asproneri in the Evros region, Greece. He related that 2 days ago the young man was crossing into Greece with a group, however after drinking water from the river he fell extremely ill and couldn’t walk anymore. We immediately contacted the person in distress who told us that he is “very sick, alone and dying, please help”, he had already tried to call an ambulance but without success. We didn’t hesitate to alert the Greek police at 02:53, and a few calls later they told us they would send a police car. Then in the afternoon they said they will start searching now, but the forest is difficult to access. The next afternoon the Police say that all the cars are searching but they haven’t found him yet, and that evening they say they have looked but cannot find him.

During this time we had tried calling multiple police stations, hospitals, ambulances, the UNHCR, border guards, Frontex and many other actors but without answers. Especially as since the morning of the 3rd of April we had lost contact to the critically ill man and were extremely concerned for his well-being.

Then on the 5th of April we received a message saying that the traveller was found in the forest by the Greek police on the morning of the 4th April, and took him to prison, threw all his belongings in the river, and then sent him to Turkey along with other travellers.

On the 7th of April we received the following testimony from the traveller:

I wanted to go to Germany to my brother via Greece and was with 5 people in a group but then I was not good after drinking poisoned water from the river and couldn’t go on with walking. Even speaking was hard. I called my father and send a GPS to him. Then my father called my brother and then they found AP for support.

Police came Sunday early morning at 6.30 and beat me up, took all my belongings (a small bag and my phone, money and copy of my passport). Then they drove me 15-20 minutes to a jail and was imprisoned for 4 hours and the police burnt my clothes.

Then there were 50-60 other people in the prison and the police took us all in cars and drove us to the river. The police had sticks of wood and beat everybody up and put us on small rubber boats to the river and put us to Turkey. There were Turkish police, who gave me a needle with medicine and put me in a hospital. Now I am in a hospital in Istanbul, I know one person in Istanbul who has lent me money and clothes and helped me.