Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – November 13th 2020

Case name: 2020_11_13_AEG723

Situation: 35 people, including three pregnant women stranded on Samos, pushed back to Turkey

Status of WTM Investigation: Ongoing

Place of Incident: Aegean Sea


Summary

In the afternoon of November 13th Alarm Phone was alerted to 35 people stranded on Samos without food and water, in need of international protection, wanting to seek asylum in Greece. It was difficult to establish direct contact to the people in distress. At 16.65h CET we reveived a GPS position via Whatsapp, which we forwarded to authorities via phone and e-mail. Throughout the early evening we attempted to contact various police authorities, none of which were reachable or took our calls. At 00.27h CET November 14th an operator of the port police on Samos answered our call but stated that they had no information about this case. At 10.00h CET the relative who had initially alerted us to the case forwarded names and further phone numbers of the stranded people, which we forwarded to authorities via e-mail. At 14.54h we received a call by one of the stranded people. The person stated that their group had been found by the Greek police at 19.00h CET November 12th, their valuables and belongings taken by the officers and placed into a small boat returning them to Turkey. The person confirmed all 35 people had arrived in Turkey.

Later, we obtained the following testimony from one of the travellers, describing the pushback: "We have been on the island. 7 men and 4 women. Two of them pregnant. After we have been found by the police, they beat us. The forced the men to get rid of their clothes. Then they put us on a Swimming tent and pulled us in direction of Turkey. We were lucky that the Turkish Coast Guard found us. If not, we would have died. It was a miracle that we survived. We would have drowned if the Turkish Coast Guard would have arrived 30min later. We need help. We are stranded in Izmir, Women, children, men. We have no place to stay. We need food, a home and we are calling for help."