Greek police have found 38 migrants who had been trapped for weeks on an island in the Evros River on the border between Greece and Turkey. This puts an end to the shadowy cat-and-mouse game with which the Turkish and Greek border guards tried to keep the group out. The migrants had to survive for weeks on leftover food and river water. There were three pregnant women and seven children.
The group came on the radar of human rights organizations in mid-July, who determined on the basis of GPS data that the island was in Greece. The migrants did not dare to go ashore for fear of the Greek and Turkish border police, who had already violently sent them back to islands in the Evros several times. There it is teeming with mosquitoes and scorpions. The five-year-old Syrian girl Maria died, probably as a result of a scorpion bite.
The European Court of Human Rights on July 20 called on the Greek government to help the stranded migrants on the island. Lawyers from the Greek Refugee Council who were in contact with them warned the European Border Guard Service Frontex, the United Nations Refugee Agency UNHCR, and the European Parliament. They shared the group’s location, but the Greek government denied that the coordinates in question were in Greece. Greek police said they were unable to locate the group.
Criminal no man’s land
The claims made by the Greek authorities are difficult to verify, as the border area around the Evros has been declared a military zone, forbidden to journalists, lawyers and aid organizations. As a result, the border area has become a kind of criminal no man’s land, where both the Greeks and the Turks hunt migrants. Nevertheless, it is possible to get a reasonable picture of the situation on the basis of photos, videos and statements that the migrants have shared.
The delta of the Evros is a vast nature reserve with lakes, lagoons and swamps. A Greek police officer told the AP that the migrants are in good health. He said they did not find the body of the deceased Maria. Police have distributed food and water and will take the migrants to a shelter.
Also read: ‘Frontex turned a blind eye to deportations of migrants by Greek coastguard’
Thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa try to illegally reach Greece from Turkey every year, hoping for a better life in Europe. Under international law, Greece is obliged to receive them and enable them to go through an asylum procedure. Instead, migrants encounter a highly secured border fence and the brutality of border police, who beat them up, rob them of their belongings, strip them and send them back to Turkey.
A secret investigative report from the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) reveals how Frontex knew early on about the pushbacks by the Greek Border Police and Coast Guard, and that Frontex was sometimes involved. The report’s damning conclusions were published last month by the German magazine Der Spiegel. This increases the pressure on the European Commission to end the cover-up of illegal deportations.