Status: 07/28/2022 5:14 p.m
Again, refugees on European soil are said to have become victims of pushbacks – although the list of injunctions by the EU Court of Human Rights is getting longer and longer.
Maria Papaminá would actually be lying on the beach now, instead she is back in her Athens office. The lawyer – she works for the Greek Refugee Council – has broken off her vacation because there was an emergency, again.
It is about a group of 50 refugees, including twelve children and three pregnant women, who made it from Turkey to Greece via the Evros River. Papaminá says they were arrested by the Greek army and police.
Violent violence then broke out against them, and one man even died. They were then forced to get into boats and cross the river to an island. They report that two more people drowned because there was no more space in the boats and they were ordered to swim.
That was on July 14th. Since then, the migrants have regularly sent photos, messages and location data to the Greek Refugee Council, among others, asking for help.
Because on the island there is no food, no shelter and no clean drinking water. Especially the children suffer from the heat, some get diarrhea. One of the refugees is also diabetic and needs urgent medical care, says Papaminá.
We’ve informed everyone, it’s a long list, including the police and Frontex, as well as the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office, the UN Refugee Agency and the National Human Rights Commission.
EU Court of Justice intervenes
They have also turned on the European Court of Human Rights. He immediately decreed that the Greek authorities must take immediate measures to save the people.
We do this because the authorities usually refuse to save the refugees. So far we’ve obtained 17 of these restraining orders since April, that’s a lot.
Military Exclusion Zone
Rather, aid organizations like the Greek Refugee Council cannot do anything, because the region on the Evros River is like a black box: the Greek government has declared the 200-kilometer-long border area a military restricted zone. This means that it is almost impossible for journalists and representatives of non-governmental organizations to even approach the transition and get a picture of the situation on the ground.
In addition, the authorities have upgraded the area to a real high-tech border in recent years: Drones and thermal imaging cameras monitor every movement on the Greek and Turkish side around the clock.
Cries for help are ignored
But as far as the 50 refugees on the island in the Evros River are concerned, the Greek authorities seem to be ignorant again this time: They ignore both the calls for help from people and non-governmental organizations and the order of the European Court of Human Rights.
The people were there for twelve days. On July 26th they informed us that Greek commandos came in the evening and took them back to Turkey.
The people have presumably become victims of a so-called pushback. This means that they were brought back to Turkey without being given the opportunity to ask for asylum beforehand. That would be a violation of international law.
Pushbacks on the Evros: The Forgotten Scandal
Verena Schälter, BR, currently Athens, July 28, 2022 3:52 p.m