In the morning of Sunday, April 7, a group of 72 people – 52 adults and 20 children – was adrift in a sailboat five kilometres south east of the Greek island of Leros, in the Dodecanese in the southern Aegean Sea.
The 72 people were a mix of Syrian (52), and Palestinian (20) nationals.
None of the passengers were wearing life jackets, and there was no rescue equipment onboard. If, for some reason people ended up in the sea, many would drown, most of them couldn’t even swim.
The sailboat had set out from the Turkish shore the previous night, and people onboard had hoped that the cover of darkness would help them reach Leros undetected. They almost succeeded.
But a few kilometres from land, the engine broke down, just as the sun started to rise from the sea. They tried to fix the engine, but to no avail: it wouldn’t start again.
The boat had sails, but nobody onboard knew how to use them. They were helplessly drifting, and in desperate need of rescue.
At 10.07am, the group reached out to Aegean Boat Report on our Emergency Hotline, and it was obvious the boat needed immediate rescue.
The appropriate body for the SAR area, the Greek authorities, was informed about the situation.
The passengers onboard the boat had also called the international emergency number, 112: everyone was informed. The group were told that boats were on their way to their location.
Shortly after, a vessel arrived. From videos taken by the passengers of the sailboat, we can clearly see that it’s a Lambro 57 Coastal Patrol vessel, ID number ΛΣ-608.
The boat belongs to the Greek Hellenic Coast Guard, and is stationed in the port of Leros.
The drifting passengers were relieved at first, but the coast guard vessels stayed at a distance from the sailboat, slowly circling around it, not making no obvious effort to approach or communicate with anyone onboard.
The group tried to signal to get them to come close, waving their arms, shouting, but there was no response. They could clearly see people on deck, all in dark uniforms, all wearing masks. This last detail, the masks they wore, worried them: they had not only seen these masked men before, many had experienced their brutality first hand in the past.
Aegean Boat Report was in continuous contact with the drifting passengers while this was going on, on multiple phones onboard. Those onboard raised their concerns, and when receiving the videos, we were concerned as well. It didn’t seem that the Coastguard was making any effort to initiate a rescue, so what were they waiting for?
We told the passengers to try to document as much as they could, for as long as they could, by taking pictures and videos, and immediately sending them to us. This was to be able to prove what happened, in case something went wrong. In this case, this evidence is the only proof that exists of what happened to them. Without this footage we have had no way to publish this case, and prove without any doubt what the Greek authorities did.
After one hour, the group saw a second, larger vessel heading towards them. The group again got their hopes up: finally someone came to actually rescue them.
Unfortunately, when the vessel came closer, their hopes turned to despair. On the deck of the vessel, they could clearly see men in dark uniforms, also wearing black masks.
It started to dawn on the group that they might not be rescued, that these vessels were not there to take them to the nearest port of safety, but to illegally push them back to Turkey.
The larger vessel was one of four P355GR coastal patrol vessels in the Greek coast guard, this one marked ΛΣ-930, an identical vessel to that involved in the Pylos shipwreck, the ΛΣ-920, which was responsible for the killing of more than 650 men, women and children on 14 June last year, when the Greek authorities tried to push back a overcrowded fishing vessel adrift inside Greek SAR zone.
These vessels were 90% funded through the ISF (Internal Security Fund), within the context of ‘Special Action for Frontex equipment’, total price €55.56 million – €50 million of European taxpayers money, used to finance violations of international laws and human rights in the Aegean Sea.
By EU and state regulations and laws, EU funds are to be used according to EU law in accordance with fundamental rights. On both counts, the European Commission has drastically failed, neglecting its duty to the people. Not only that, they continue to pour money into Greece, refusing to take any responsibility for their actions, looking the other way while the Greek authorities are systematically violating fundamental rights, all in the name of “border protection” and the “European way of life”.
Shortly after the second coast guard vessel arrived at the drifting sailboat, all contact was lost with the passengers onboard: all their phones went offline simultaneously and we could not regain contact.
At this point, we decided to go public with what we knew at the time, and posted about the drifting boat outside Leros on our social media platforms, to inform the public in an effort to try to protect the people onboard.
On this we unfortunately failed miserably, and we apologise for not being able to do more for these vulnerable people.
At the time, even though we had our suspicions, we had no tangible evidence that would confirm that the 72 people on the sailboat would be pushed back, and we hoped that the Greek authorities would follow international law.
In this case, as in hundreds of others, they didn’t, but this was at the time impossible to prove.
Today we can, and we are, by publishing overwhelming amount of evidence that clearly proves the crime committed by Greek authorities. There is absolutely no doubt what happened.
At the time, however, we had to follow protocol, and not publish anything we couldn’t back up with hard evidence.
We looked for information on Leros, to see if by any chance the group arrived there. We also looked at Samos and Kos, but the 72 people were nowhere to be found.
Official information published by the Greek authorities confirmed that no group of this size was registered on the Greek islands that day, nor the following one.
We did find that a smaller group of 25 people had been registered on Leros this day, but this group was too small, and had arrived in Xirokampos by their own means, rather than being taken in by the coast guard.
This was later confirmed both by local press and the Greek coast guard.
On Sunday 7 April at 3.25pm, the Turkish coast guard found and rescued 72 people, 52 adults and 20 children, 52 Syrian and 20 Palestinian nationals, from three life rafts drifting outside Bodrum, Turkey, north east of the Greek island of Kos.
When comparing pictures and videos of the people onboard the sailboat outside Leros, with the footage taken by the Turkish coast guard, when picking them up outside Bodrum, there is absolutely no doubt: it is the same group, no question.
So the natural questions would be “how did this happen?” and “who is responsible?”,
We can in this case, as in many previous documented cases, answer both questions. It was quite clear, since this group didn’t arrive on any of the Greek islands, that they had been pushed back. How this was done, and how these people had been treated, we had no information on. Until now.
What we have been told by the victims after we reconnected with them in Turkey, may come as a shock for many. We have unfortunately heard testimonies very similar to these – especially in terms of the extreme and ilegal violence used by the Greek Coastguard – many times before.
The coast guard vessel P355GR placed two officers onboard the sailboat, armed with guns, batons and rifles, while officers standing by the railing above on the coast guard vessels were aiming at them with shotguns.
Everyone onboard was ordered to turn off their phones, which the officers onboard then stole, along with other valuables.
The officers immediately threw the phones into the sea, while valuables like money and jewellery were collected in a bag.
Before taking them onboard the coast guard vessel one by one, they thoroughly searched everyone, looking for hidden objects. Nobody was allowed to take any of their belongings, not even food and water for the children onboard.
While people were searched, the officers began beating them. Their colleagues on the coast guard vessel were shouting, everyone was terrified, especially the children, watching these masked men attack their parents, while angry men – also in masks – pointed guns at them from above.
Everyone was crying, begging for them to stop, nobody listened. Not everyone was at first willing to obey all orders, but those who refused were attacked by the Coastguard officers.
The officers broke one woman’s arm because she refused to take off her clothes in front of everyone. Her three children were watching. The officers forced her clothes off.
When everyone was taken onboard the coast guard vessels, the abuse continued. Some of the officers weren’t satisfied with the search done onboard the sailboat, and began to search passengers again, but this time, for some reason, mostly ‘searched’ only the women.
The officers forced the women to undress in front of them: no area of the body was left untouched in the search for valuables and other hidden objects.
Some loudly protested. They were beaten with batons and a buttstock.
One of the victims said “these monsters were familiar with the use of violence, some even seemed to enjoy it”.
The people were placed on deck, most in the front of the coast guard vessel, and forced to sit and look down. They were not allowed to talk.
This lasted for several hours, while the boat was heading back out to sea. They had no idea where they were heading, because the rairailing was to high, so they could not see.
After several hours, the boat stopped, and people were taken in groups to the side of the vessel, where life rafts had been placed in the sea.
Again, people tried to protest, and again it was resolved by force. Those who refused to enter the rafts were pushed or kicked down the stairs towards them.
Once everyone was in the rafts, the coast guard vessel quickly moved away.
The 72 people, amongst them 20 children, were left helplessly drifting in the Aegean Sea by officers of the Greek coast guard, on direct orders from Greek authorities, financed and blessed by the European Commission.
The Turkish coast guard received notification by email from the Greek coast guard, as they normally do after people have been pushed back by Greek authorities, that a group of people were drifting inside Turkish territorial waters.
The Turkish coast guard went to the area and found three life rafts packed with people.
The Greek coast guard vessel had transported the group of 72 people, men, women and children almost 50 miles, to illegally push them back to Turkey.
There is not much doubt about who is responsible, and this is hardly an isolated incident.
In the last four years, 81,000 people have been pushed back by Greek authorities in the Aegean Sea, 25,000 of them in over 1,400 Greek manufactured life rafts.
Everyone knows what is going on, it’s even paid for by European taxpayers money, and blessed by the European Commission.
The vessel used in this brutal pushback is, as already mentioned, the same type of vessel used in the pushback attempt of the overcrowded fishing vessel “Adriana”, in which over 650 people were killed last year.
In that shipwreck, close to Pylos in Greek waters, no video material was provided to the investigation from the high-tech surveillance system onboard the Greek Coastguard vessel, with the excuse that it was “turned off”.
We wonder if this time the surveillance system was on, and the Greek authorities can provide footage that contradicts our evidence and the statements from the victims, or perhaps it was also this time conveniently turned off or “under maintenance”.
ELOP electro-optical payloads
In March 2021, Frontex calls for the Coast Guard vessels funded by the organization to video record their operations.
To be crystal clear, in scope og EU regulation 656/2014, “all actions taken by Frontex assets or Frontex co-financed assets, should be documented by video consistently”.
According to Solomon, `Frontex had recommended the visual recording of operations, during a meeting where representatives from Greece were present as well as from other European countries, following complaints of human rights violations by the Coast Guard.`
We have, as we routinely do in cases like this, where Frontex vessels or Frontex assets are seemingly involved in, or witness to, human rights violations, turned all evidence over to Frontex’ Fundamental Rights Office.
The Fundamental Rights Officer (FRO), and the staff of the Fundamental Rights Office, have an independent role within Frontex to support its work from a human rights perspective, and to reinforce the respect, protection and promotion of fundamental rights.
The FRO has the mandate to initiate investigations, called Serious Incident Reports (SIRs), if there is an indication that Frontex vessels, or Frontex funded assets, have been violating laws and/or fundamental rights.
Unfortunately in this case, even though the vessel involved in this brutal pushback was 90% financed through the Internal Security Fund (ISF) within the context of ‘Special Action for Frontex equipment’, (we can read even in official Frontex documents that the vessel is listed as “Frontex funded assets“), they are, according to Frontex not listed as financed by Frontex, but by the EU.
So the FRO cannot start an investigation since the vessel at the time of the incident was not on “Frontex duty”.
Even harder to believe, since they were financed through the ISF, each of the four vessels must spend 4 months every year on Frontex operations, including outside of Greece: they are “Frontex assets”.
But no investigation can be launched by the FRO as long as the “Frontex asset” is not on Frontex operations paid for by Frontex, as in this case it was not.
It’s hard not to conclude that these regulations and protocols were designed specifically to ensure that nobody could be held accountable for anything done by these vessels and their crews, but in this case someone is accountable: The European Commission.
But the Commission is totally unable and/or unwilling, to take any responsibility.
In the case of these vessels funded through the Internal Security Fund, or any other funding to member countries, EU money can only be used according to EU law in accordance with fundamental rights.
These rules are clear, and set out in the Common Provisions Regulation. But there is no monitoring mechanism or enforcement of any kind to ensure this regulation is adhered to.
It’s clear that Ursula Von Der Leyen and the European Commission has failed in its duty, not only a little but miserably, and not only once but over and over again, in its commitment to ensuring EU cash is not handed over to fund criminal activity.
In the last four years, the rights of over 81.000 people have been brutally violated in the Aegean Sea, where Greek authorities have used EU funded or co-funded vessels to “protect” the European Border.
Not one infringement procedure or independent investigation has been launched by the European Commission into these well-documented human rights violations. Nobody is held accountable, and funding continues to be hurled at Greece in the name of “border protection”.
At what point will the European Commission start to follow its own laws? When will it demand accountability from EU member states? And when will it start infringement procedures against those who systematically undermine the rule of law in Europe?
It’s about time the European Commission stops acting like an ostrich, putting its head in the sand believing that nobody can see him.