Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – November 9th 2020

Case name: 2020_11_09_AEG720

Situation: 40-60 people stranded in the Evros river without food, water or shelter, their fate is unclear

Status of WTM Investigation: Ongoing

Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Position: 41.319999, 26.492075 (small island on border river)

Summary

In the evening of November 9th Alarmphone was alerted to a group of 40-60 people stranded on a small island close to Edirne in the River Evros. At the time of the alert, the relative informed us they had been without water for 30h and were urgently asking for help. Throughout the night we were unable to establish direct contact to the stranded people. We attempted to inform authorities but were unable to reach operators who understood English. At 10.00h CET November 10th we finally reached authorities and forwarded the information available to us. Uzunköprü police had no knowledge of the case; the ‘general river police’ stated the coordinates to be on Greek territory and confirmed they would start a search.

Throughout the day, we attempted to receive an update on the situation of the stranded people from authorities, without success. When communicating with authorities via phone in the evening, all operators denied any knowledge of this case. By 23.00h CET, authorities had been informed of this case for more than 20h and yet deny all responsibility. In a call with the ‘general river police’ at 23.05h CET the operator stated the locations was “in an area we cannot go” and commented on the fact that he perceived our calls to be rather odd.

In the morning of November 11th we called UNHCR in Turkey, who refused to answer our call, and Greece, who copied all information and later on informed us they had passed it on to authorities.

The fate of the 40-60 people stranded on the island without food, water, or shelter and actively refused rescue by both Greece and Turkey remains unclear. We are still investigating the detailed developments and will include potential updates into this report.

Twitter Chronology

November 10th

22.58 CET https://twitter.com/alarm_phone/status/1326283211232735233

To be included into the second report, the two further tweets (in the list plus the informations into the report):

Alarm Phone

@alarm_phone

·

Nov 11, 2020

Replying to @alarm_phone

Don't let these people suffer another night in the cold! To our knowledge, they are still stranded on the islet on #Evros river without food and water. They can neither continue to Greece, nor return to Turkey. Several authorities & @Frontex are aware but doing nothing.

Alarm Phone

@alarm_phone

·

Nov 12, 2020

We have been contacted by a person from this group. After being stranded on the islet for days, they were able to return to Turkey and are now back in Istanbul. We are relieved to hear that they are safe and condemn the #pushback by #Greece. These violent practices have to stop!