Just after midnight, on Saturday April 5, Aegean Boat Report was contacted by a group of 24 people, 10 of them small children, and a cat, who a few hours earlier had arrived on the Greek island of Kastellorizo.
The group reported being wet and could and stated “please we need help urgently, it’s dark and we need help, there are many children with us that is freezing, everyone is wet and cold”.
We informed them, as we routinely do when people arrives on Kastellorizo, that there is no organization on the island that can assist, and that we recommend them to move towards a more populated area, and call 112 to inform authorities of their presence on the island.
Shortly after we lost all contact with the group, as a precaution, since they had told us that there were some medical issues in the group, without elaborating, we contacted local authorities. They first didn’t want to take the information we had, but after some “convincing”, the operator on the phone, reluctantly, agreed to take the information and said they would look into it.
Since we were unable to reconnect with the group, we did a follow up call to the local port police in the morning, whomwe had spoken with previously. This time they told me that they had no knowledge of any incidents on the island, and had most likely developed amnesia, because they had received no calls regarding arrivals on the island.
From that point, we suspected that the group that arrived on Kastellorizo the previous night, was no longer on the island, and in fact had been kidnapped, forced back to sea, and left drifting by the local coast guard.
After communicating with the Turkish coast guard, they could confirm that their patrol boats had found two separate groups drifting in life rafts, after first being alerted by email from the Greek coast guard.
The first group of 24 people, 10 of them small children, was found drifting in a life raft at 07.00 in the sea area south east of Kaş, Antalya district. The second life raft carrying 18 people, was located at 11.15 closer to land in the same area.
After reviewing the Turkish coast guard footage from the rescue operation involving 25 people, and comparing it with footage taken by the refugees on Kastellorizo, it’s clear as day, no doubt what so ever, it’s the same group that contacted Aegean Boat Report in the early hours of April 5, from land on Kastellorizo.
The port police on Kastellorizo tried their best to cover up and mislead, little did they know that we had hard evidence of the refugees presence on the island, and there can be only one conclusion. No arrivals was registered on Kastellorizo this day, nor the following day.
Local police and coast guard on Kastellorizo kidnapped a group of 24 people, amongst them 10 small children, forced them back onto a Greek coast guard vessel, took them back out to sea, and left them helplessly drifting in a life raft. We have unfortunately no information what happened with the cat the refugees had brought with them to Kastellorizo.
For months people who actually have arrived on the larger islands like Lesvos, Samos, chios and Rhodes, have not been in any imminent danger of being pushed back, on the small islands things have been different.
We have documented in the past that pushbacks from smaller island, where there are less watchful eyes, no organization, or no people living at all, like Inousses, Pasas, Farmakonisi, Simi, and Kastellorizo, have continued. The chance of local coast guard and police to be “caught in the act”, is less probable, but not zero.
Documenting these cases is many times very challenging, due to lack of enough evidence. In this case the people arriving documented their arrival, and sent the information to Aegean Boat Report. It unfortunately didn’t save them, but we can at least show the world what Greek authorities did to them.
For this group that don’t help, the damage is already done, but perhaps, if enough of these cases are properly documented, and not least published, this could potentially discourage Greek authorities to do the same to the next group arriving on Kastellorizo.
We will continue to monitor the situation in the Aegean Sea as long as it is needed, try to assist when possible, and publish our findings to the public, to make awareness on how Greek authorities systematically violate the rights of people, in the name of border protection.
There have been many efforts by Greek authorities to silence Aegean Boat Report, it has not been successful, and never will.
What on the other hand can silence us, is lack of funding. So please, support our monitoring project, that has been ongoing for seven years, by becoming a monthly donor.
10 Euros a mont might seem insignificant, even pointless, but if many enough contribute, this is actually enough to keep this vital support for people on the move running in the year to come.
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Aegean Boat Report