21/07: AEG- 27 people missing at Greek/Turkish landborder > Push-back

22.07.2018 / 20:51 / Aegean Sea

Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 21st of July 2018
Case name: 2018_07_21-AEG-406
Situation: 27 people missing at Greek/Turkish landborder > Push-back
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Saturday, July 21, at 19.28 CET, The Alarm Phone received a message from a contact person indicating that 27 people had been missing for 3 days near the Greek/Turkish landborder being left without food and water.. The shift team immediately contacted the relevant actors in the region, including UNHCR, and learned that the Greek Border Police was reportedly already looking for the group. The following day, the shift team received information that parts of the group had been pushed back to Turkey and that their shoes and other belongings had been taken away or broken by the Greek authorities. The shift team maintained contact with a contact person as well as relevant NGO and International Organizations. The contact person alerted the shift team at 16.50 on July 22 that 12 travellers were in a Turkish detention centre, including her brother and sister. On July 23, The Alarm Phone was able to speak to one person from the returned and confirm that they had been pushed back to Turkey. The Alarm Phone was not able to gain information about all travellers in the group, as several have disappeared after the Turkish authorities appeared and started arresting them. Allegedly, some could escape but at least one person of the arrested got reportedly returned to Syria. A follow-up is still ongoing. Among the group were two kids, two women and two sick persons.
Credibility: UP DOWN 0
Layers »
  • Border police patrols
     
    While the exact location of patrols is of course constantly changing, this line indicates the approximate boundary routinely patrolled by border guards’ naval assets. In the open sea, it usually correspond to the outer extent of the contiguous zone, the area in which “State may exercise the control necessary to prevent infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws” (UNCLOS, art. 33). Data source: interviews with border police officials.
  • Coastal radars
     
    Approximate radar beam range covered by coastal radars operating in the frame of national marine traffic monitoring systems. The actual beam depends from several different parameters (including the type of object to be detected). Data source: Finmeccanica.
  • Exclusive Economic Zone
     
    Maritime area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea in which the coastal state exercises sovereign rights for the purposes of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, the seabed and its subsoil and the superjacent waters. Its breadth is 200 nautical miles from the straight baselines from which the territorial sea is measured (UNCLOS, Arts. 55, 56 and 57). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans
  • Frontex operations
     
    Frontex has, in the past few years, carried out several sea operations at the maritime borders of the EU. The blue shapes indicate the approximate extend of these operations. Data source: Migreurop Altas.
  • Mobile phone coverage
     
    Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network coverage. Data source: Collins Mobile Coverage.
  • Oil and gas platforms
     
    Oil and gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Data source:
  • Search and Rescue Zone
     
    An area of defined dimensions within which a given state is has the responsibility to co-ordinate Search and Rescue operations, i.e. the search for, and provision of aid to, persons, ships or other craft which are, or are feared to be, in distress or imminent danger. Data source: IMO availability of search and rescue (SAR) services - SAR.8/Circ.3, 17 June 2011.
  • Territorial Waters
     
    A belt of sea (usually extending up to 12 nautical miles) upon which the sovereignty of a coastal State extends (UNCLOS, Art. 2). Data source: Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero, Atlas of the European Seas and Oceans

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