Category: Pushback and Human Rights Violations
Number of people: 20
Just after 13:00h CET on 22 December we received information about a group of travelers from a relative of one member of the group. They told us that the group had encountered the Hellenic Coast Guard who had stolen the travelers money and beat up several people of the group.
Some weeks later we managed to reach one of the survivors who reported the following:
When we arrived on the island we started walking. When we entered a forest the soldiers came. They put us in a small van and took us to the harbour. We arrived on the island around 10:00am in the morning and we stayed until 20:00pm in the night. We were around 20 people in total. On the harbour there were soldiers dressed in grey colour with a white number on the back and a covered face, they searched us and took all our belongings, our passports, identity cards, money and phones. They were violent with the children and touched the women. At night they transferred us to a ship, they were beating the women and children. The ship we entered had a European Union flag, it is a blue flag with stars. And this ship looked like an army ship. It took around 1-1,5 hours until they put us on a boat. We started shouting that they put us there at night and that it is dark but they did not listen to us. When they threw us in the boat, they put a 7 month year old infant in a plastic bag and threw it to the people already in the boat. We had one phone left and we called the Turkish Coast Guard and they came to rescue us. When we arrived to the Turkish border land we stayed five days in the jail. Now we do not have any paper.