On Friday February 23, a group of 30 people arrived on the militarized desert island of Farmakonisi.
The group contacted Aegean Boat Report and asked for assistance, they begged to be taken to a camp, and given the opportunity to apply for international protection, but the Greek authorities had other plans.
The people on Farmakonisi provided pictures, videos and location data, that proved without a doubt that they were on the island.
Farmakonisi is a militarized desert island, where only Greek military and coast guard are allowed to go. Anyone arriving on this island is at the mercy of the Greek authorities, that many times means being robbed of all belongings, beaten, and forced back out to sea, left helplessly drifting in life rafts.
From the video we can see a Lambro 57 close to shore on the island, the people also told us that a drone was flying over them, so it’s quite clear that Greek authorities knew they were there.
Several soldiers from the military base on the island approached the group, they were quickly rounded up and taken to a shed surrounded by barbed wire next to the piere on the island.
The Lambro 57 seen in the video, was already in port. The group was handed over to masked men from the coast guard vessel in dark uniforms. One by one they were stripped of all belongings, bags, money, papers and phones, before taken onboard the coast guard vessel, after 30 minutes the vessel was heading back out to sea.
Under normal circumstances, people who arrive in this area would be taken to Leros, but on this day, nor the following day, nobody was registered in the camp on Leros from Farmakonisi. A group of 30 people, six of them small children, had just magically disappeared into thin air, again.
At 14.55 Turkish coast guard reported to have found 30 people, amongst them six children, drifting in two life rafts outside Bodrum, north east of Kos.
From pictures and videos published by the Turkish coast guard, it’s clear that these people are the same as the once contacting Aegean Boat Report from the desert militarized island of Farmakonisi.
The Greek Coast Guard transported the group 40 miles before they forced them into two life rafts and left them helplessly drifting in the Aegean Sea.
Since the tragic Pylos shipwreck in June last year, where Greek authorities killed over 650 people in an effort to push the boat towards Italian waters, there has been a mutual understanding that Greek authorities have stopped pushing back people that have arrived on Greek soil.
This is not entirely accurate, Greek authorities stopped pushing back people who arrived on the larger islands, like Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Kos, but arrivals on the smaller islands, like Farmakonisi, Simi, Agathonisi and Kalolimnos continued to magically evaporate into thin air.
We have several times been close to revealing the truth, but the lack of 100% clear evidence has stopped us going public. In the meantime more and more life rafts have been mysteriously popping up in the Aegean Sea, without any clear indication where they came from.
Last month, 9 of January, a group of 23 people had arrived on Inousses, north east of Chios, after informing authorities they miraculously disappeared.
After arriving the group walked to the village on the island to make their presence known. Locals informed police and coast guard arrived and told they would be taken to Chios, they never arrived.
The group was found drifting in a life raft by the Turkish coast guard outside Cesme, east of Chios.
Due to insufficient footage from the Turkish coast guard, we were unable to match pictures of the people from the raft to the people that had arrived on Inousses. We had testimonies from the victims on what had happened, footage from Inousses, but didn’t have sufficient footage to match the victims, therefore the case was not made public.
Pushbacks in the Aegean Sea continues unhindered and unchallenged by the European Commission. Since the Pylos shipwreck 14 June last year we have registered almost 700 pushbacks performed by Greek authorities in the Aegean Sea, where 20.000 people have been illegally pushed back from Greek territory.
In the months since the tragic shipwreck in June, 200 life rafts have been found drifting in the Aegean Sea carrying almost 4.000 people, it’s business as usual for the Greek authorities in the Aegean Sea, fully supported by Frontex and the European Commission, funded by European taxpayers money.