Athens, Greece– After 92 asylum candidates were discovered removed naked on the Greek side of the Evros River on Friday, Athens and Ankara are once again trading allegations of ill-treatment of refugees, taking their battle public on Twitter.
The river forms part of the border in between the 2 nations, and the asylum candidates, all males, are primarily from Afghanistan and Syria. Some have roots in Iran, Morocco, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Greek cops and European border guards from the EU border firm Frontex discovered them on the river rely on the early morning of October 14, “deserted, entirely naked, and totally unequipped”, stated a Greek cops declaration.
The males were held at the authorities precinct of Feres, 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the border, for 3 nights prior to being required to the First Reception Centre of Fylakio for registration and asylum processing.
Greek authorities state the guys informed them Turkish authorities drove them to the border in main lorries, prior to boarding them onto rubber rowboats and informing them to cross.
” They informed us it took the Turkish military authorities 24 hours to collect everybody at the river’s edge, which obviously was an experience due to the fact that individuals had no food or water at that time, and after that after removing them they pushed them to cross,” Manos Logothetis, head of Greece’s First Reception Service, informed Al Jazeera.
Greek migration minister Notis Mitarachi tweeted, “I have actually asked for & & will see the president of the UN General Assembly in New York, I have actually notified the Commission & & will reveal images & & videos.
Για το ντροπιαστικό συμβάν με τους 92 μετανάστες στον Έβρο η Τουρκία είναι σε δύσκολη θέση. Δυστυχώς έγιναν αντικείμενο εξευτελιστικής συμπεριφοράς. Ζήτησα & & θα δω στη Νέα Υόρκη τον πρόεδρο της Γενικής Συνέλευσης του ΟΗΕ, έχω ενημερώσει Κομισιόν & & θα δείξω φωτογραφίες & & βίντεο. pic.twitter.com/68 KxZzafuC
— Νότης Μηταράκης– Notis Mitarachi (@nmitarakis) October 17, 2022
“[Turkey’s] behaviour towards 92 migrants whom we saved at the borders today is an embarassment for civilisation,” he stated. “We anticipate Ankara to examine the occurrence and secure at last its borders with the EU.”
Turkey has a 2016 arrangement with the EU to keep back refugees attempting to cross into Europe.
Turkey’s governmental workplace stated Mitarakis “is as soon as again carrying out understanding management methods by utilizing the images of removed naked migrants for which there is no area, nor any date offered”.
Η μηχανή των ελληνικών ψευδών ειδήσεων είναι και πάλι σε λειτουργία … Μπερδεύοντας την Ελλάδα με την Τουρκία, ο Υπουργός Μετανάστευσης και Ασύλου με τις αναρτήσεις ψευδών, λανθασμένων περιεχομένων προσπάθησε να καταδείξει τη χώρα μας ύποπτη.
— Fahrettin Altun (@fahrettinaltun) October 16, 2022
Posting in the Greek language, Turkish federal government spokesperson Fahrettin Altun composed on Twitter, “We alert Greece to desert its severe treatment of refugees as quickly as possible, to stop its unwarranted and incorrect charges versus [Turkey], and to provide the self-respect of federal government.”
Turkey likewise published a prolonged declaration on its main site implicating Greece of frequently abusing refugees, publishing pictures it declared were proof.
The Greek migration ministry informed Al Jazeera that proof of the current occasion can not be revealed due to the fact that it belongs to a legal file at the Citizens’ Protection Ministry.
The UN released a declaration stating it was “deeply distressed … by such terrible and degrading treatment”, and required an examination.
A struggling border
Greece and Turkey have actually remained in a full-blown details war about who is maltreating refugees given that March 2020.
That is when Turkey stated it was unilaterally deserting its 2016 treaty commitment to keep back or readmit asylum applicants, implicating the EU of stopping working to measure up to its own responsibilities under the treaty.
Turkey motivated asylum applicants to storm the Greek border, shuttling numerous to Eastern Thrace at state cost. Greece has actually given that developed a steel palisade along 12 km (7.4 miles) of its land border with Turkey, and revealed it will extend it along the whole 140 km (87 miles) length.
The EU has actually likewise invested countless euros setting up speculative monitoring systems along that border.
It is uncertain why, if the 92 guys were being put together over a 24- hour duration, the occurrence came as a surprise to the Greek authorities.
Turkey consistently implicates Greece of pressing refugees back without processing their asylum claims, which is prohibited under the Geneva Convention of1951 And Greece consistently implicates Turkey of pressing refugees forward to blackmail Europe for more cash to look after them.
Apostolos Veizis, head of Intersos Hellas, an NGO taking care of refugee kids, explains that the 92 guys landed in Greece on an especially embarrassing day for Greece and the EU.
On October 14, OLAF, the European anti-fraud authority, released a report in which it discovered people at Frontex, the European border and coast guard, complicit in Greek pushbacks.
Frontex responded it had actually taken restorative action, however did not rebut the allegations.
Stripping refugees or requiring they get rid of some clothing have actually been utilized prior to as intimidation techniques.
Al Jazeera this year reported the story of Parvin, an Iranian psychologist who attempted to go into Greece 6 times. She affirmed that authorities in the Evros location took her coat away, and the males pressed back to Turkey with her were entrusted T-shirts in near-freezing weather condition.
The NGO Human Rights Watch states Bulgarian authorities have actually removed asylum candidates prior to sending them back to Turkey.
Stripping has actually likewise been utilized as a kind of nationwide disparagement.
Last February, Greece declined Turkish allegations that its border guards removed and summarily expelled 12 asylum candidates who later on passed away of direct exposure in Turkey, near Greek borders. Turkey has actually likewise implicated Bulgaria of comparable techniques.
Greek authorities declare Turkey thoroughly prepared the most recent event.
” Nothing leaves Turkish soil without the authorities’ understanding,” deputy education minister Angelos Syrigos stated.
Lieutenant General Andreas Iliopoulos, who. in 2015, led the Supreme Military Command for the Interior and Islands (ASDEN), which supervises of the National Guard in the Aegean, stated the “instrumentalisation of refugees” is continuing, pinning blame on Turkey.
” Psychological operations belong to this and their supreme receivers are the EU, UN and NATO,” Iliopoulos informed Al Jazeera.
” The message is that whatever we do, Turkey will constantly be one action ahead … Greece and the EU can not avoid these relocations. Not even the [border] fence can, due to the fact that when individuals arrive on this side of the Evros they are still on Greek soil, and Greece and the EU are accountable for whatever occurs to them,” he stated.
Veizis thinks the current occurrence becomes part of a promotion project to slur Greece, however that couple of individuals care.
” Once the EU handed over to Greece the task of being a European guard, and we accepted, they cleaned their hands of it,” Veizis stated. “It’s ended up being more of a Greek-Turkish ping-pong.”