<b>Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 23rd of November 2020</b> <i>Case name</i>: 2020_11_23-AEG727 <i>Situation</i>: 23/11: Group seperated at the landborder Turkey-Greece, several people report being pushed back on different occasions to Turkey <i>Status of WTM Investigation</i>: Ongoing <i>Place of Incident</i>: Aegean Sea <i>Summary of the Case:</i> On 23 November, we were contacted by a group of eight people. They were all men. Seven of them were from Syria and one from Gaza. They told us that they had originally been part of a group of 15, but they had split up because 7 people needed rest. Those seven people had been arrested by the Greek police and were now back in Turkey. They gave us a number for their friends back in Turkey. The 8 travellers still in Greece also told us that they had been chased and shot at by the Greek police, but they had managed to evade them unharmed. They were understandably afraid of pushback and did not trust anyone. They asked us for the number of the UNHCR in Athens as they wanted to claim asylum in Greece. We gave them the number. Meanwhile, we got in contact with someone from the group who was back in Turkey. He explained that after they were arrested in Greece they were taken to a prison camp with tents. Other groups were brought to this camp. About 100 people were then brought to the river at the border at 1:00am local time and forced in groups of 15/16 onto small plastic boats made for 5/6. The overloaded boat they had pushed into capzized. 5 people, three men and two women, were swept away by the current. One of the missing men was his cousin. They walked then through the Turkish border station and then hired a taxi back to Istanbul. On 2 December the group that had remained in Greece contacted us again. The previous afternoon five of them had been arrested at Kavala train station. The five had asked for asylum, but instead were treated very badly by the police and then pushed back to Turkey.

This post was originally published on Watch the Med.