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In accusations of illegal repatriation of migrants in the Aegean focuses on Spiegel Online magazine, reporting on a specific incident. The helper in their research, as the magazine notes, is the Norwegian MKO Aegean Boat Report.
As Deutsche Welle points out in a related article, in recent months the international media have been blaming the Greek authorities for the illegal repatriation of migrants to Turkey. The Spiegel Online report cites the example of two women who came to Lesbos on November 29 to seek asylum, as they are entitled under international law, but were forcibly removed.
With the analysis of photos, videos and geographic coordinates provided by the NGO Aegean Boat Report, Spiegel Online tried to “reconstruct” the incident and concluded that the two women landed on Lesbos, but then they found themselves again at sea with 16 other people. immigrants, after the intervention of “Greeks”, who are not named.
Incident details on Spiegel Online
The magazine article notes: “The two women had hidden near the town of Mytilene and from there they sent their coordinates via WhatsApp to the NGO Aegean Boat Report. There they also met Costas Theodorou, an assistant professor at the University of the Aegean, who photographed them and later alerted the police. Meanwhile, the two women had met other immigrants again and were moving forward together. Jansi Kimbega, a 17-year-old from Congo, then videotaped his cell phone: “Two cars with sirens stopped the assembled team. There were men in the cars with their faces covered.” They threw us to the ground and took our cell phones. “Kimbega said. He managed to hide his. That’s why there are pictures of cars, the license plates are visible. The men put them on a bus and took them to the port of Petra.”
After all this, according to Spiegel Online, strangers forced them Immigrants To undress, they cursed them, bathed them in cold water, went out with them in an open-air boat and were finally abandoned at sea in an orange life raft. “The Turkish Coast Guard took hours to save them,” columnists note. “The photos show men and women disembarking early in the morning and a little later while in Izmir. They are, at least in part, the same people seen in the Lesbos photos.” Spiegel Online notes that “now the Greek authorities regularly resort to so-called rejections.”
The Greek position on objections
What does the Greek part say about all this? “The Greek authorities did not respond in detail to Spiegel’s list of questions,” columnists note. “The police said that in all their operations they respect human rights derived from international, European and national law. The Coast Guard Ministry said 30 foreigners were located on land, who were quarantined. He also stressed that in any case the applicable law is complied with. “The ministry did not make a report on the deportation of 18 people seeking protection, as described in Spiegel,” the magazine article reads.
Finally, Spiegel Online refers once again to the possible responsibilities of the European Agency for the Protection of External Borders (Frontex), claiming that it is aware of the deportations. In some cases, Frontex officials, including German police, stop refugee boats. (…) Frontex director Fabrice Lazeri is under pressure on this issue and is trying to justify himself to the European Parliament, the Commission and the Management Board. To this day, he insists that he has no evidence of direct or indirect involvement of his subordinates in the deportations. “
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