THE shocking truth is slowly emerging of last Monday’s ‘several’ drownings of refugees off the Aegean island of Farmakonisi, close to the Turkish coast.
The bodies of a woman in her thirties and of a five-year old child were recovered last Wednesday on the Turkish coast.
Another nine refugees, all women and children, are missing. Sixteen refugees, men, women and children, were taken to Farmakonisi by a Greek Coast Guard boat.
According to United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) officials who took statements from the refugees, there were 26 Afghan and two Syrian refugees on a small boat trying to reach a Greek island from the Turkish coast.
UNHCR quoted survivors as saying that several refugees fell off the boat as it was being towed at high speed by the Greek Coast Guard boat toward the Turkish coast in bad weather conditions.
Both the UNHCR and Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, called for an immediate investigation into the circumstances.
Last Tuesday Laurens Jolles, UNHCR’s Southern Europe Regional Representative, in a statement urged ‘the authorities to investigate this incident and how lives were lost on a boat that was under tow’, and added that ‘survivors need to be quickly moved to the mainland so that their needs can be better looked after’.
The Commissioner stated that he was ‘shocked and distressed’ and called on Greek authorities to ‘put an end to the illegal practice of collective expulsions and effectively investigate all such cases’.
The criminal policies of the Greek government have been previously highlighted by refugee organisations who claim that instead of rescuing refugees, the Greek Coast Guard is instructed to force refugee boats back to the Turkish coast by any means, regardless of circumstances and the dangers for loss of life.
In effect, the Greek Coast Guard is breaking all international high seas and refugee-migrant regulations and laws.
The Greek Coast Guard stand accused since it was its action to tow the refugee boat that led to disaster and the drownings.
Last Monday’s drownings were the first in 2014. More than 360 refugees died in October last year when their boats capsized off Italy’s Lampedusa.
A few days later the Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras visited Italy and said that ‘Greece has 1.5 million unemployed and 1.5 million illegal immigrants!’
In a statement on Wednesday, the Greek Coast Guard said it had been towing the vessel toward Farmakonisi, not toward the Turkish coast, when some of the migrants fell overboard. The Coast Guard said that it couldn’t have taken the surviving refugees on board because there had been an ‘engine fire’ on the Coast Guard boat. Dozens of refugees, migrants and Greek workers, shouting anti-racist slogans, gathered on Thursday morning at the port of Piraeus as the 16 surviving refugees of last Monday’s capsized boat arrived.
The 16 persons, including children, were taken to the Greek Council for Refugees offices and then put up at the Athens Municipality Refugee Centre.
Amongst the surviving 16 refugees there was a man who stated that his wife and his four children are missing.
