In the morning of Tuesday, August 20, a group of 22 people, 17 adults and 5 children, contacted Aegean Boat Report for assistance, after they had arrived on the Greek island of Farmakonisi in the Dodecanese.
The group was scared, and asked for assistance, so that they could be taken to the nearest port of safety, provided with food, water and medicine attention, and given the opportunity to apply for asylum in accordance with international law.
The problem was that they had arrived on a desert island, and the only people present were military personnel from the base on the island, and the only way off this island was to inform Greek authorities.
Farmakonisi is a small uninhabited Greek island in the Dodecanese, present only a Greek military garrison.
The group provided pictures, videos and geolocation data, that proved without a doubt that they were on Farmakonisi.
We advised them to go to the military station, to make their presence known, not because it’s a safe solution, it’s definitely not, but because it’s the only solution on this island, and that they first contacted 112 and informed that they were on the island.
As far as we know they didn’t go to the military base, they said they had several people in the group with mobility issues, especially an old man with heart problems.
They said “ we called 112 and they told us that we should stay in our location, help would come to us”, this was the last we heard from the group, after that, all five phones they had used to contact us with went offline, time was 10.11 am.
We assumed that the military personnel on the island had been informed, and that they had located the group, who was hiding in the bushes a short distance from the base.
Normally, when people have been found on the island, they are taken to a fenced in area down by the dock, only shelter is an old shed, no toilets, no water. We assume this was also done in this case.
People are locked up until a coast guard vessel arrives to take them off the island, preferably they would then be taken to the camp on Leros. Unfortunately, in many cases when people have arrived on Farmakonisi, they never end up in any Greek camp, but in a life rafts drifting in the middle of the sea.
We searched for information about the group on Leros, unfortunately, we were not able to locate them, a group of 26 had arrived on Leros, but they had come from a different location, and not from Farmakonisi.
Just after midnight on Wednesday August 21, Turkish coast guard found and rescued 22 people, 17 adults and 5 children, from a life raft drifting outside Bodrum, Turkey.
Turkish authorities could inform us that they had received a email from the Greek coast guard, informing them about a group of people drifting inside Turkish territory waters. You can ask yourself how did the Greek coast guard know, if they hadn’t been involved?
This is the normal routine, whenever Greek coast guard leave people drifting in life rafts in the Aegean Sea, they send a email to inform the Turkish coast guard. Over the last four years thousands of these emails have been sent, and every single time people are being found drifting in life rafts. So ask yourself, how does the Greek coast guard know?..
When we compare pictures and videos sent to us from the group on Farmakonisi, with the pictures and videos taken by the Turkish coast guard from the rescue operation outside Bodrum, there is absolutely no doubt, it is the same group.
22 people, men, women, small children and elderly people, where captured on Farmakonisi by Greek authorities, robbed, kidnapped, locked up, taken back out to sea, transported by a Greek coast guard vessel 32 nautical miles, forced into a life raft, and left helplessly drifting in the middle of the sea in the dark.
14 hours after we lost contact with them on Farmakonisi, they were found drifting in a life raft. Greek authorities probably expect us to believe that they suddenly got the urge to go back to Turkey, found a fully functioning life raft, and paddled with their shoos 32 nautical miles back to Turkey.
It’s clear as day what happened here, and who is responsible, strangely enough, Greek authorities categorically denies any involvement. These pushback cases have been documented and proven hundreds of times by journalists, organizations, EU bodies and Frontex, but they just continue to deny it.
In the last four years 1.600 life rafts have been found drifting in the Aegean Sea, carrying over 27.000 people, not ones have the EU Commission raised concerns over this “phenomenon”, not ones has there been launched independent investigations, it has not even been discussed. You should ask yourself why, it’s definitely not because they don’t know what is going on, or the lack of evidence.
To look the other way while crimes against humanity are being committed, to deny it’s existence even do the facts speaks for itself, is unconscionable. The European Commission is not only suppressing these crimes, they are financing it with European taxpayers money, and deliberately covering up for the Greek authorities.
Europeans seem to have learned nothing from crimes committed in our names in recent history.
It’s time to stand up, it’s time to raise our voices and say “not in our name, not anymore, never again!”
All original evidence in this case, and previous cases, will be made available for journalists, researchers, lawyers, independent investigators, national and international bodies, upon official request. We have nothing to hide, but they do.