The Greek government is trying to seal its borders not only through increased surveillance and the construction of a fence; but research by Amnesty International shows that those who do arrive are sometimes pushed straight back to Turkey. Those returned to Turkey under such circumstances are denied the chance to apply for asylum in Greece or explain whether they have other needs, in flagrant violation of international law.
Amnesty International’s research also shows that the way in which such push-back operations are carried out by the Greek border guard or coastguard is putting lives at risk. Several of those interviewed by Amnesty International claimed they were abandoned in the middle of the sea on unseaworthy vessels or left on the Turkish side of the land border with tied hands. …
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Lesvos
28.06.: 21 (13 men, 2 women and 6 minors)
24.06: 42 (30 men, 7 women and 7 minors)
23.6: 33 (23 men, 3 women, 7 minors)
17.6.: 22 (18 men, 3 women, 1 minor)
Samos
28.06: 30
22.06: 38
21.6.: 43
19.6.: 44
17.6.: 48 (36 men, 8 women and 4 minors)
Farmakonisi
19.6.: 18
In Lesvos island dozens of refugees are detained in the port being exposed to the burning sun while lacking water and food supply. Among them are children and even a 2-month-old baby. +++ In Amigdaleza detention conditions have even worsened since November 2012, said Rebecca Harms from the Green Party after a second visit in June 2013. +++ Meanwhile a young migrant (20-year-old) from Cote d’Ivoire committed suicide in Grevena police station because he didn’t want to be deported to his country.
Meanwhile, KEERFA (ΚΕΕΡΦΑ), the Movement “United against racism and the fascist threat” denounces that Greek authorities and IOM use “Gestapo like torture methods” to force refugees and migrants detained in Amigdaleza to “voluntarily” return.
First they are detained for many months without knowing when they might be released, then they are being pulled by force to the airport. A woman employee from IOM escorts them who threatens that if they don’t accept to sign the voluntary return they will wear them head covering masks and bring them by force to the airport. IOM employees enter detention centers to collect signatures for voluntary return in co-operation with some embassies such as the one from Pakistan.
Continue reading ‘Detention conditions in Greece inhuman and life-threatening – IOM enforces “voluntary return”’
Yesterday the 159 migrants from Afghanistan, Syria and Egypt had started from turkey some days earlier heading towards italy when their ship got at distress at sea close to the Calabrian coast. Among them were 8 children, one newborn and four women. Four migrants had to be transferred to hospital.
Yesterday, the police release more than 70 of the migrants and refugees who had recently arrived on the island and who were detained under inhuman conditions inside the port area for a few days. Some of them had been already transferred to different police stations on the island for further detention. The release was a consequence of further arrests on the island and overcrowded cells. Families from Afghanistan, Syria and men and women from Somalia took the ship to Athens.
Meanwhile another 44 refugees arrived yesterday on Samos island. The detention centre on Samos has a capacity of 300.
Lesvos: 10
hellenic coast guard
Agathonisi: 27 (17 men, 6 women and 4 minors)
Leros: 21 (18 men, 1 woman and 2 minors)
hellenic coast guard
Bulut Yayla, a Turkish archaeology student and left-wing activist, says he travelled to Greece in April this year to escape imprisonment and torture he endured under the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Once in Athens he tried to seek asylum as a political refugee to escape an international arrest warrant issued against him after being accused of having links with an outlawed Marxist organisation.
On 30 May, Bulut, 26, left the restaurant where he worked, in the central Athens neighbourhood of Exarhia, to meet some friends He never made it. At around 9pm, witnesses say they saw five men beating him near the restaurant, forcing him into a car and driving off. Two days later, his family got a call from Turkish authorities, informing them he was in their custody, in a high-security prison. The head of Greek police later confirmed the car’s licence plates showed it was a police vehicle.
“He was seized, handcuffed and shoved by force in a car where they closed his eyes, nose and mouth, and tortured him,”
Among the arrested are mainly Afghans, Syrians and Somalis – all classical refugee populations. (for arrests by nationalities nationwide see also statistics by the greek police in greek)
By the coast guard arrested migrants for illegal entry
not included are arrests by the police
Lesvos
June 6th: 75
June 5th: 30 (24 men, 03 women και 03 children from Syria and Afghanistan)
June 4th: 42 (among them families, women, a baby etc. from Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia)
May 19th: no numbers available
May 17th: 41 (37 men, 01 woman and 03 minors)
May 13th: no numbers available
May 11th: 19
May 7th: 31 (22 men, 06 women και 03 minors),
May 2nd: 13 (08 men and 05 women)
May 1st: 14
Continue reading ‘New arrivals on Lesvos and other Aegean islands in numbers’
30 degrees celsius
75 arrivals today; 95 the two days before
26 degrees celsius
Despite the positive experience of PIKPA open welcome centre that was opened by the end of last year by the local activist network “Village of all together”, which provided for the first time a real reception solution for refugees, the authorities on Lesvos keep refugees locked up in degrading and inhuman conditions ignoring the given alternative.
With the increase in arrivals in the beginning of May 2013, detention facilities started to get overcrowded once more on the island. The authorities didn’t know where to put the refugees anymore.
Some of the recent arriving refugees are trying to survive since three days in the sun while being “locked up” in the port of Lesvos without any protection or infrastructure. There is no food supply by the responsible authorities but only through volunteer citizens on the island. Nevertheless it remains insufficient. Yesterday one young man fainted due to heat, thirst and hunger. 
Among the refugees of the last three days, who come in their majority from war torn areas such as Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia, are several pregnant women, elderly and sick persons, small children and even a five-mmonth-old baby with severe health issues. Basic medical aid is provided by the Doctors of the World. The coast guard and the police keep even vulnerable persons such as families, children, pregnant women for days imprisoned. Additionally Syrian nationals who according to a decision of the Ministry of Citizen Protection are not to be imprisoned anymore remain at least some days behind the bars.
Even a 5-month-old baby
On Lesvos since two months the coast guard arrests the refugees on land and on sea, detains them for a few days in the fenced open area inside the port, makes a first registration and then transfers them either to the local police station or to a detention camp in Chios or elsewhere in Greece. The police then issues after an uncertain period of time between some hours and up to months a detention and a deportation decision against each refugee.
more than two women advanced in pregnancy
Not knowing where to put the refugees other than inside the fenced port area or in the filthy cells of the police station, the arriving refugees are pushed around from one detention place to the other, from one island to the other or even to the mainland. Currently the detention centre of Chios where many of the in Lesvos arrested had been transferred to has also passed its capacity (of 100). No one can tell who will stay for how much time in detention. At the same time there are unaccompanied minors imprisoned in different police stations of the island who will soon reach one month behind the bars because they wait for a place in a specialised reception centre. Such a place exists in Agiasos, a mountain village on the island, but instead of offering refuge to the children in prison, the government has cut the funding, the centre is since two months without staff and the 60 hosted minors are trying to survive now without any food.
Meanwhile tourists arrive from Aivalik in Turkey and look at the destitute refugees
Meanwhile BBC published yesterday an article according to which the Greek authorities push-back illegally refugees and migrants to the Turkish side in Evros but also seemingly in the Aegean denying them thereby the right to access to the territory
and as such to asylum in Europe. Even more, the alleged push-backs put the lives of the refugees in risk of death.
Yesterday while the coast guard was repairing a rubber boat just next to the refugees who were sitting in the sun some boys from Afghanistan asked with fear in their eyes:
“They are not going to return us back with that boat to Turkey, are they?”
Despite the great efforts of the local activists in welcoming the new arriving refugees with all possible means in PIKPA and outside of it, the government obviously has not the intention to invest in this project and to create hospital and open welcoming centres. On the contrary it is creating a constantly growing detention and deportation regime with new and bigger prisons, growing repression, higher fences and hidden deportations on the border.
Everyone asks: When will we be free?
P.S. A remark towards the Frontex boat and staff that is currently in operation on Lesvos: How exactly is Frontex with its fundamental rights approach reacting to the obvious degrading detention conditions and the alleged push-backs? As proudly presented the high technology and expertise assumingly allows the “experts” from the European Agency to see everything that is going on on the border. Doesn’t it? IF not actively part of the system isn’t there at least a responsibility of cognisance and thus a complicity?
Europe is not only present with its flag but also with Frontex
A refugee boat has sunk in the Aegean Sea off Ayvalık, leaving an Afghan refugee dead and five others missing.
The deceased refugee was identified as 45-year-old Vahide Selami.
Nine refugees were reportedly rescued after the incident.
The boat was cruising south from Çıplak Island (Chalkis, Cimno) in the northwestern province of Balıkesir at 5 a.m. before sinking due to an unknown reason.
Coast guard rescue teams are continuing their work to find the missing five.