Location of group at 5:50 CEST on 8 July 2024. Source: Google Maps, location added by Alarm Phone.
A group of 27 people arrived on the Greek island of Inousses. They were then subject to a deadly pushback. They were forced into life rafts and left adrift at sea by Greek authorities. After their life rafts crashed onto rocks, 8 people died.
In the morning hours of the 8th of July, Alarm Phone received a distress case concerning 27 people, who had landed on the Greek island of Inousses. The people had arrived safely on land but needed support as they had run out of water and were far from any camp or other facility. They wanted to apply for asylum in Greece.
We managed to establish direct contact to the people, who confirmed on the phone that they were on the Greek island of Inousses. They spoke of their urgent need to be rescued as soon as possible by the competent authorities. After confirming these details, we alerted Greek authorities at 06:45 CEST by mail, and sent a second mail shortly after with all the names of the people in the group. We also mentioned their intention to apply for asylum in Greece. The group later informed us they were moving to ta little church nearby, to wait in a safe place for their rescue.
Just after they started moving towards the small church, they sent us a message: “We are with the local police, do we have to be afraid?”. After this moment, they went offline and could not be reached anymore. Over the next hours and days, we tried many times to reach them but to no avail.
We called various authorities to try and get information about the group’s whereabouts. Despite having been in receipt of the email alert, local authorities on Chios claimed not to be aware of the situation. They only noted down details of the case over the phone and then asked us to call local police of Inousses. The local police station of Inousses also claimed that they were not aware of this situation and told us it was outside of their responsibility. When calling the local port authority of Inousses, they claimed that it was not their responsibility and hung up the phone on us.
We continued to call all the different authorities in Greece throughout the day, but neither the Hellenic Coast Guard nor the Greek police picked up the phone or shared any information with us.
We were worried: the people were offline for too long, and we began to fear another brutal push back. We called Turkish authorities during the afternoon, however, at the time they had not rescued anybody in this area.
It was a long night and we kept trying to get information from the Greek authorities, without success.
In the early morning of the 9th of July, 24 hours after our last contact with the people – who had at that time been on land on a Greek island – we learned with horror from Turkish newspapers about 2 life rafts that had crashed on a Turkish island. Greek media reported on the incident but failed to mention the life rafts that the people had been in, hiding the pushback and cause of the crash. Following this discovery, we managed to confirm that it was the same group we had been in contact with the day before. We also learned that 7 people from this group had died in the sea and one was missing.
And so, it became clear: the group had been pushed back by Greek authorities. After having arrived on Inousses, they had been forced into life rafts, left adrift at sea and then suffered a deadly crash against the rocks of the Turkish Island of Kara Ada. Following the collision, the people had tried to rescue themselves by swimming to the island. However, not everybody made it.
We spoke with Turkish authorities, who confirmed the terrible news. Turkish authorities also confirmed that after a search and rescue operation has been conducted, they had found the dead body of the missing person. This brought the confirmed death toll of the pushback up to 8 people.
These 8 people had arrived on European soil with their families 24 hours before. They were looking for safety, trying to escape the circumstances they were living in. When speaking with the people the day before, they had sent us photos of themselves, seeming happy and relieved to have made it to land on the island of Inousses. However, they did not find safety, but only torturous violence and death.
Europe: You are responsible for these deaths. These 27 people were looking for safety, instead 8 of them have been murdered by Greek authorities and the European border regime.
Sadly, this case is not an exception, but is instead exemplary of Greek and European border politics and practices. These days, to arrive in Greece and to encounter Greek authorities often results in violence and death. The border regime in Greece, as with other borders across and beyond Europe, has become a deadly force in the war against migration. This brutality is not only tolerated, but actively funded and equipped by the European Union.
Countless acts of (deadly) violence by Greek and European border guards have been documented in the past years. However, instead of putting pressure on European states to end their violent practices, the conditions in Greece and elsewhere persist. Not only that but they happen in broad daylight, made visible through the countless efforts of people on the move to document the inhuman treatment they face.
We mourn these deaths and condemn the deadly European borders. We stand in solidarity with the survivors and relatives and do our best to support them in their struggle for justice and for freedom of movement. We will never forget and never forgive.
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Twitter/news link:
https://x.com/alarm_phone/status/1810202921750913523
https://x.com/alarm_phone/status/1810699350328168844
