After dark on Monday November 20 a rubber boat carrying 17 Afghans, six of them small children, sat out from Turkey towards the Greek island of Lesvos.
They hoped that they would reach the island within a few hours, in the cover of darkness, that the Greek coast guard and Frontex, who are guarding the border, wouldn’t spot them, unfortunately they were mistaken.
Deep inside Greek territory waters, outside the north east side of Lesvos, a Greek coast guard vessel approached them. They knew what was installed for them, they had been pushed back several times before by the Greek coast guard.
They tried their best to outrun the coast guard vessel, but they didn’t stand a chance. Several times the coast guard vessel, a Lambro 57, ID number ΛΣ-614, belonging to the Hellenic coast guard, stationed on Lesvos, rammed the fragile rubber boat.
Anyone familiar with the sea knows that such maneuvering is extremely dangerous, and can easily result in damaging a small rubber boat, sending people onboard into the sea. We have numerous times seen this extremely dangerous and reckless behavior by the Greek coast guard.
In the last months there has been several shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea, where people have drowned after their rubber boats has gone down. Greek coast guard has claimed the these boats has gone down without their interference, and that they only have done their utmost to save lives, after seeing this we can only wonder what really happened. Survivors from these shipwreck has been conveniently “shielded” from the press, for their own “protection”, and not been allowed to speak to anyone.
The rubber boat was stopped, and masked officers demanded that they handed over their phones, in which they did, you do as you are told when someone is pointing a gun at you. Phones were thrown in the sea, other belongings and valuables were confiscated.
The Greek coast guard vessel towed the rubber boat back towards Turkish waters, and sat them adrift in the middle of the sea in the dark. The engine the masked officers had taken off the boat and thrown in the sea, they had no phones to call for help, all they could do was wait, hopefully someone would find them.
At 21.40 the Turkish coast guard found a rubber boat drifting outside Ayvacik, Turkey, onboard was 17 Afghans, six of them small children, everyone was taken back to Turkey and arrested for illegally leaving the country, also the small children.
These cases of illegal pushbacks in the Aegean Sea performed by the Greek coast guard, on direct orders from the Greek government and Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is a direct violation of not only Greek law, but also international laws, Maritime laws and international human rights.
These authorities are happening several times every single day in the Aegean Sea, for the last four years over 75.000 people have been illegally and brutally pushed back by Greek authorities in this area, nobody, not even the European Commission, seem to have any problems with it, all in the name of border protection, paid for by EU taxpayers money.
It’s time to put an end to this, it’s time to put these criminals where they belong, in jail, behind bars. We can no longer tolerate that these atrocities are performed in our names on our watch.