https://english.elpais.com

18 migrants killed in wildfires raging across Greece, officials say

Eighteen people, believed by fire officials to be migrants or refugees, were found dead in Greece’s Dadia Forest after a raging wildfire swept for the fourth day through the northeastern Greek region near the Turkish border that serves as a major crossing point for refugees and migrants.

The charred remains of the 18 people were recovered Tuesday near a shack close to a national park in Alexandroupolis, a city in Greece’s Evros region. Evros, which shares a land border with Turkey, is seen as a “no man’s land,” where bodies of migrants trying to cross into the European Union are found every year.

“With great sadness, we learned of the death of at least 18 immigrants from the fire in the forest of Dadia,” Dimitris Kairidis, Greece’s migration minister, said in a statement Tuesday. “This tragedy confirms, once again, the dangers of irregular immigration.”

Kairidis added that he denounced the “murderous activity of criminal traffickers” which is “what endangers the lives of many migrants both on land and at sea every day.”

Two other people were killed in this week’s fires — an 80-year-old shepherd and an apparent migrant — bringing the death toll in Greece to at least 20.

While migration numbers into Greece from Turkey have dropped in recent years as a result of strict border controls and deals with Ankara, Greece remains a front-line country for migration to Europe. The Eastern Mediterranean route — which includes arrivals by land and sea — has seen more than 17,000 people trying to cross this year, mostly from Syria, the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq.

Earlier Tuesday, the Hellenic Fire Service said that because there were no reports of missing people from surrounding areas, “the possibility that these are people who entered the country illegally is being investigated.”

In early August, Greek officials met to coordinate migration policy after more than 100 migrants — mostly from Syria and Iraq, including 53 children — were found crossing the border in Evros, the Associated Press reported. Last week, Greece’s coast guard stopped nearly 100 migrants in inflatable boats crossing through the Aegean Sea from Turkey — with such crossings increasing in recent weeks, officials said.

Sixty-three wildfires broke out in Greece within 24 hours, the fire service said Monday. The agency added that it sent out more than 100 evacuation messages for the broad area since Monday, amid windy, dry conditions as Southern European temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

On Tuesday, the Ministry for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection issued a “very high fire risk” alert for several areas.

Authorities have been evacuating affected villages as the wildfires spread. Flames threatened to engulf a hospital in Alexandroupolis, prompting officials to evacuate all of its patients — including newborns and those in intensive care units — onto a ferry that became a makeshift hospital on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Nuns from a monastery were also evacuated, local media reported.

Satellite images recorded massive plumes of smoke streaming from the affected areas.

Theodore Giannaros, a fire meteorologist and associate researcher at the National Observatory of Athens, called the 18 deaths a “true tragedy.” Nearly 99,000 acres have been burned in the past three days.

“These facts clearly stress … that we need to change our whole approach for managing wildfires in Greece,” he said, calling for an integrated and interdisciplinary fire management approach and better collaboration between authorities and the scientific community.

Fire officials and researchers have raised alarm bells at the region’s lack of preparedness for wildfires — which are increasing in intensity, length and geographic breadth alongside summer heat waves.

Neighboring Turkey and Spain’s island of Tenerife have also dealt with wildfires this week.

The E.U. mobilized more resources Tuesday to help Greece’s firefighting battle. In the last two days, the E.U. has deployed seven airplanes, one helicopter, 114 firefighters and 19 vehicles, the E.U. commission said in a statement.

Greece is seeing “an unprecedented scale of wildfire devastation this summer,” European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic, said in a statement Tuesday.

▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/22/greece-wildfires-bodies-heat-europe

Elliniki Lysi MP for Evros P. Papadakis also made similar statements live to local outlet e-evros, where he clearly blames people on the move for the #Evros #wildfires:
[from 1.06] ’I said it and will say it again, we’re at war, the mountains are full and everywhere, at all sites [of fire], there’ve been interfered with. Arrests have been made by ordinary citizens but also by the police at all (fire) fronts … we have war, they have come here in coordination, and they have put, the illegal immigrants specifically, fires at more than ten locations. At all mountains and where there are fires, there are illegal immigrants. They know this very well the police, the fire brigade and the volunteers who are very many.

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbwC1D1Nq2c

–—

The MP with the extreme-right party Greek Solution, P. Papadakis, invites people on Facebook to “take measures” & “be alert to do what we do best” against “illegal migrants” who, he alleges, “hinder the work of pilots”.
In another post he states that “illegals” were “starting fires”. “It’s a war” he says, and urges: “declare an emergency”!
The comments are a cesspool of pure, unadulterated racist hatred.

These are the depths to which parts of Greek society have sank -and the @kmitsotakis govt has everything to do with it.

https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/c51ea9690-856390/mjwz3wvympU1/BU6LnYnStPo8GM4xtiwS9a8DnDfikQGZQMantG3z.png https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/c51ea9690-856390/rXQ2nGRkTDgC/2jTx94KeZAI5xO8bA4MsUmxwG3oHIPXYXC7h98xp.png

▻https://twitter.com/ninarei/status/1694096863094288864

19 refugees dead in the devastating fires and escalation of racist violence in Evros, Greece

https://rsaegean.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/19-refugess-dead-in-the-fires-and-racist-violence-no-text-1024x576.jpg

While the situation seems to be out of control with fires burning across a large part of Greece, from Evros region to Parnitha in Attica, the tragic human toll currently includes 19 confirmed dead refugees on Evros.

One refugee was found charred on Monday 21/8 in Lefkimi, Evros, where he was reportedly trapped and died from the fumes. Another 18 refugees, including two children, died yesterday, Tuesday 22/8 in the Dadia forest, where they were also found charred by firefighters.

At the same time, the fires have destroyed and threaten vast forest and residential areas, many of which have been evacuated. The evacuation of the Alexandroupolis hospital at dawn on Tuesday is characteristic: 65 impatiens, including babies and intubated patients, were transferred to a passenger ferry boat that served as a floating hospital and to the port of Alexandroupolis, in tents. Νursing homes in the city were also evacuated.

The lack of effective fire protection, prevention and response to the fires is blatant, also due to the severe understaffing – also blatant is the overall inadequacy of the state mechanism. The fires, which burn huge green areas and now also residential areas every year, are a predestined tragedy, to the extent that no effective protection and response policies are implemented.

At a time when at least 19 refugees are dead, instead of the State assuming its responsibilities, we unfortunately see its representatives obfuscating reality, and in some cases, accepting, if not fomenting, racist discourse and practices. Characteristic is the statement of the Minister of Migration and Asylum Dimitris Kairidis on the deaths that “this tragedy confirms, once again, the dangers of irregular migration”, as well as the respective statement by the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Vassilis Kikilias. At the same time, an attempt is unfolding to collectively incriminate refugees in part of the media, referring to alleged arson and fires emerging on the paths they follow.

To top it off, we see an escalation of racist violence in Evros, targeting refugees and migrants as allegedly responsible for the fires: yesterday, on Tuesday, a video was released in which a civilian has 13 refugees imprisoned in his truck – he referred to 25 people – and calls for a pogrom against them. After the extent of the incident, he was arrested along with two alleged accomplices without, however, any official information on the fate of the kidnapped refugees. At the same time, many other reports and videos speak of vigilante “militias” and “bounty hunters”, citizens that are called to swoop in against refugees and migrants. Further, members of the parliament appear to foment such practices through their public statements, which include racist language and a “call to action” to citizens in the area.

This escalation of racist discourse and practices is extremely worrying and cannot be tolerated! The murderous persecution of refugees at the borders and racist “pogroms” must stop now, their victims must be protected, existing incidents must be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators must be punished, taking into account a potential racist motive. The State must assume its responsibilities and act immediately to identify and rescue people who may be in danger in the region, both from these practices and from the devastating fires. Furthermore, as regards the dead, all the relevant protocols must be followed to identify them, inform their relatives and bury their remains, with respect for the dead and their rights.

▻https://rsaegean.org/en/19-refugees-dead-fires-and-escalation-of-racist-violence
#racisme #violence #violence_raciste

Greece: Suspected asylum seekers killed in Evros fires

Eighteen bodies were found in two different locations in Dadia national park amid forest fires, the Evros fire department reported today.

Fire fighters have found the charred remains of 18 suspected asylum seekers in the Dadia forest in Evros amid wildfires in Greece that have been raging for the past four days.

Fire department spokesman Yiannis Artopoios confirmed in a televised address on Tuesday that the bodies were found in two different locations near the Turkish border, one of the most common migration entry points for Syrian and Asian migrants crossing the Evros River from Turkey.

No local people have been reported missing, so the remains are thought to belong to asylum seekers.

“We know very quickly if it’s a local or not, because [they] will be reported missing very fast,” forensics anthropologist Jan Bikker, who is working to identify the bodies, told MEE. “If they’re not reported, then most likely it’s an asylum seeker.”

According to Bikker, Dadia is a common migration route, as it is densely forested, allowing migrants to hide from the Greek authorities who would likely push them back out to sea.

“The safest way [for them] is through the forest. This is what people do after they cross over the river,” he told MEE.

“A lot of migrant groups [that] travel [do] not even [travel] on the roads, but in the middle of the forest.”

Amid soaring temperatures, these routes are also the sites of devastating forest fires.

“There is always a possibility that someone could have died in one of those fires…and the bodies are never recovered," he said.

“It’s very, very dangerous terrain…if they go missing, it’s very difficult to trace them."

While Artopois said that emergency alerts were sent to all mobile phones in the area, according to Bikker, it is unlikely the group would have carried phones or had any signal if they did.

“Often, they are not able to communicate with the outside world until they reach like a village where there is some internet signal,” he said.
Struggling to breathe

The NGO Alarm Phone had reportedly been in contact with two groups of 250 people stranded on different islets of the Evros River for days. Some of them sent videos of the approaching fires with pleas for help: “The fires are getting very close to us now. We need help as soon as possible!"

“They fear for their lives as the wildfires approach & the air is unbreathable. Their cries for help have remained unanswered by authorities for days,” the NGO tweeted.

Later, the NGO reported receiving another alert from a group near the town of Soufli. “They tell us one person struggles to breathe. They unable to move due to the nearby fires and worry they will die,” they tweeted.

Greece has seen a devastating wave of wildfires since July, fuelled by high winds and soaring temperatures. The recent deaths have brought the overall toll to 20. Fifty-three new blazes broke out across the country on Monday.

For Bikker, who works to trace long-term missing people in the region, the impact of wildfires on migrants is often overlooked.

“People think of the locals, but it also [impacts] the migrants.” He added: “For many of the people who go missing, we will not find anything…because they get lost in the fires and the remains will never be recovered.”

Since 2020, civil actors have reported a surge in disappearances and deaths of asylum seekers on the Greek islands.

When they arrive on the islands, migrants are driven to hiding in forested or mountainous areas in order to evade pushback by the Greek authorities.

▻https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/greece-suspected-asylum-seekers-killed-evros-fires

Fires, Pushbacks and the Far Right: Misplaced Blame and the Mobilisation of Violence Against People on the Move in Evros

▻https://borderviolence.eu/reports/fires-evros
#extrême_droite #extrême_droite

Deaths in Greece wildfires highlight the plight of asylum seekers

Firefighters find 18 burned bodies in Dadia Forest, suspected to be asylum seekers, as wildfires ravage northern Greece.

The discovery of 18 bodies in the Greek wildfires – thought to be asylum seekers – has prompted new discussion around the plight of those on the move in the country.

Greek authorities found the remains of 18 people in the national forest of Dadia on Tuesday, in the northeastern Greek region of Evros where the blaze is still raging.

The group, reportedly made up of two children and 16 adults, was likely trying to flee from the flames, according to the local coroner Pavlos Pavlidis, who said the children were between 10 and 15 years old.

It was separately reported that the body of a man was found on Monday also presumed to be an asylum seeker.

Locals have had to abandon homes and livelihoods to escape the fires as villages and even the main hospital in Alexandroupoli, the region’s capital, were evacuated.

The Evros region shares a land border with Turkey and lies along a well-trodden route for asylum seekers crossing into Europe from Turkey.

The area is highly monitored by Greek authorities and there have been ongoing reports of illegal and brutal pushbacks of asylum seekers, which authorities adamantly deny.

Some people who used this route, which consists of swathes of forests, have previously described to Al Jazeera how they have hidden to avoid detection.

Alarm Phone, an emergency hotline frequently contacted by people on the move in distress, told Al Jazeera they had been in contact with a number of groups of people in the region in recent days who described being threatened by the flames, but said were equally afraid of being pushed back over the border.

Alarm Phone said the area was essentially a “no-man’s land” for asylum seekers.

The Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum expressed “great sadness” on the news of the deaths, but added that “despite the constant and persistent efforts of the Greek authorities to protect the borders and human life, this tragedy confirms, once again, the dangers of irregular immigration”, and denounced “the murderous activity of criminal traffickers”.

The Civil Protection Ministry also expressed condolences, but added “the unfortunate foreigners, while they were forbidden to be in the forest … and despite multiple 112 messages to Greeks and foreigners in the area, did not leave”.

It is not known if the group had working mobile phones, understood the language of the messages or knew it was forbidden to be in the forest.

Two Greeks and one Albanian were arrested on Tuesday after posting a video online of a group of people presumed to be asylum seekers locked in a trailer.

In the video, the man accused migrants of having started the fires but offered no evidence and none has emerged that this is the case.
Conspiracy theories

The Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN), a coalition of more than 14 organisations, in a statement with Lena Karamanidou, a noted researcher on Evros, pointed to far-right galvanisation around conspiracy theories that migrants were responsible for the fires.

They said that figures such as Kyriakos Velopoulos, a member of parliament and leader of the far-right party Hellenic Solution had shared the video of the people locked in the trailer.

“Yet again, a tragic situation has been manipulated to blame people on the move themselves for their own deaths, and to strengthen links between migration and criminality that has led to the proliferation of mobilised right-wing groups in the region,” the BVMN said, criticising the response of some Greek authorities.

“Greece’s intense focus on migration has come at the cost of its land and its citizens, with tens of millions of euros poured into high-tech Closed Controlled Access Centres and the Automated Border Surveillance Systems used to ‘prevent entry’ of 2,170 undocumented persons between the 14th and 17th of August, and arrest 29 alleged human traffickers,” they said.

“Yet, there were few fire-preparedness measures taken for the wildfires that everyone knew were coming, and that have destroyed Greece’s natural landscape and razed homes and livelihoods to the ground,” BVMN added.

Eftychia Georgiadi, International Rescue Committee’s head of programmes in Greece, told Al Jazeera it was “devastating that at least 18 people have needlessly lost their lives”.

“Nobody should be forced to seek shelter in the forest and left without adequate protection,” Georgiadi said.

She said – once confirmed – the deaths “demonstrate the deadly consequences of the EU’s failure to agree on a humane, sustainable asylum system”.

“This lack of coordinated action leaves people exposed to grave dangers at every step of their journeys in search of protection in Europe,” Georgiadi said, adding it was vital “the EU and its member states uphold the fundamental right to apply for asylum, and create more safe routes so that fewer people are left with no option but to risk their lives on such dangerous journeys”.
‘Invisible’

Alarm Phone told Al Jazeera that asylum seekers moving through the region had become “invisible”, and sent a list of the groups they had lost contact with in recent days as well as a catalogue of reports of pushbacks and violence in the area.

“Nobody implied that foreigners set the fires on Rhodes one month ago,” they said, “state mechanisms – not just Greek – did everything to evacuate tourists”, and highlighted the difference between how international media focussed heavily on tourists impacted by the fires on Rhodes earlier this summer compared to the muted response now.

The group told Al Jazeera that climate change added an extra layer of violence to the lives and treatment of those on the move.

“The comparison between how foreigners are treated during disasters in Greece shows that the right to life is arbitrarily determined based on racist and colonial socioeconomic standards.”

▻https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/24/deaths-in-greece-wildfires-highlight-the-plight-of-asylum-seekers
#invisibilité #droit_à_la_vie #touristes #tourisme

Update : originally it was reported that 18 died, but now 8 more dead have been added.

“The first 18 #migrants were found dead near a landslide in the Avanda area , as the Fire Service spokesman said, while the second group was found in the Lefkimmi area”

▻https://twitter.com/EleniKonstanto/status/1693983836298776988

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Φρίκη : 18 οι απανθρακωμένοι μετανάστες μέσα στο δάσος της Δαδιάς - Εγκλωβίστηκαν από τη φωτιά

18 πτώματα εντοπίστηκαν μέσα στο δάσος της Δαδιάς - Οι μετανάστες βρήκαν φριχτό θάνατο

Τραγωδία στο Δάσος της Δαδιά. Οπως αναφέρουν οι πληροφορίες, η μεγάλη φωτιά στον Εβρο έχει προκαλέσει τον θάνατο 18 μεταναστών, που εγκλωβίστηκαν μέσα στο δάσος της Διαδιάς. Και υπάρχουν φόβοι ότι ενδεχομένως ο αριθμός θα αυξηθεί. Πάντως η πληροφορορία που μετέδωσε ο Σκάι ότι βρέθηκαν και άλλοι 8 μετανάστες νεκροί στη Λευκίμμη δεν επιβεβαιώθηκε.

Μέχρι στιγμής έχουν εντοπιστεί 18 πτώματα.

Σύμφωνα με τα όσα έχουν διαρρεύσει από πηγές της Πυροσβεστικής, μονάδες πυροσβεστών που επιχειρούν στην περιοχή, βρέθηκαν ξαφνικά μπροστά σε ένα αποτρόπαιο θέαμα. Δεκάδες απανθρακωμένα πτώματα μεταναστών, που εγκλωβίστηκαν στην φωτιά μέσα στο δάσος. Τις πληροφορίες επιβεβαιώσε σε έκτακτη ανακοίνωση που έκανε ο εκπρόσωπος της Πυροσβεστικής κ. Αρτοποιός, σημειώνοντας ότι γίνονται ενέργειες μέσω Διεθνών οργανισμών βοήθειας, για την αναγνώριση των θυμάτων.

Οι 18 μετανάστες βρέθηκαν νεκροί κοντά σε παράπηγμα στην περιοχή του Αβαντα, όπως είπε ο εκπρόσωπος τύπου της Πυροσβεστικής Υπηρεσίας.

« Στην πυρκαγιά της Αλεξανδρούπολης, σε επιτόπιο έλεγχο από στελέχη της Πυροσβεστικής στην ευρύτερη περιοχή του Άβαντα εντοπίστηκαν οι σωροί 18 ατόμων πλησίον παραπήγματος. Με δεδομένο ότι από τις γύρω περιοχές δεν έχει υπάρξει καμία δήλωση εξαφάνισης ή αγνοουμένων κατοίκων διερευνάται το ενδεχόμενο να πρόκειται για ανθρώπους που εισήλθαν παράτυπα στη χώρα.

Υπενθυμίζεται ότι από χθες είχαν σταλεί μηνύματα 112 εκκένωσης της ευρύτερης περιοχής. Σημειώνεται ότι, τα μηνύματα μεταδίδονται και σε κινητά από ξένα δίκτυα που βρίσκονται στην περιοχή. Ήδη από το αρχηγείο της ελληνικής αστυνομίας έχει ενεργοποιηθεί η ομάδας αναγνώρισης θυμάτων καταστροφών. Οι έρευνες σε όλο το μήκος της περιοχής που εκδηλώθηκε και βρίσκεται σε εξέλιξη η πυρκαγιά, συνεχίζονται ».

▻https://www.thetoc.gr/koinwnia/best-of-internet/plirofories-gia-dekades-apanthrakomenous-metanastes-mesa-sto-dasos-tis-dadias

Greece: Evros wildfire dead are victims of ‘two great injustices of our times’

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Reacting to the deaths of 19 people, likely migrants and refugees, on 21 and 22 August in fires affecting the Evros region, Northern Greece, Adriana Tidona, migration researcher at Amnesty International said:

“The 19 people killed by wildfires in northern Greece appear to be victims of two great injustices of our times. On the one hand, catastrophic climate change, which governments are failing to address and is worsening the scale of wildfires worldwide as rising temperatures lead to longer and more destructive fire seasons. On the other hand, the lack of access to safe and legal routes for some people on the move, and the persistence of migration management policies predicated on racialized exclusion and deadly deterrence, including racist border violence.

“Though the identities of the people killed by the fires are not known, it seems likely that they were migrants and refugees who had recently crossed the border into Greece. Because of the lack of access to safe and legal routes for people trying to reach Europe, migrants and refugees increasingly use the land borders in the Evros region to cross irregularly from Turkey into Greece. Authorities there have systematically responded with unlawful forced returns at the border, denial of the right to seek asylum and violence.

“The fires have fuelled racist rhetoric and abuses against migrants and refugees. On his Facebook account, Paraschos Christou Papadakis, an ultra-nationalist Greek MP, racist language to claim that fires had been started by migrants and refugees. A private individual was arrested, after he abducted a group of migrants and refugees in his vehicle and incited others to do the same, uploading a video of his actions online.

“Alarm Phone, an NGO, has reported that hundreds of refugees and migrants are stranded in different areas of Evros while fires blaze in the region. Amnesty International calls on the Greek authorities to urgently evacuate all those stranded in the Evros region and who are unable to move safely due to fires and to ensure that refugees and migrants who have entered into Greece irregularly can seek asylum and are not illegally forcibly returned at the border. The Greek authorities must publicly condemn and investigate any act of racist violence or speech or incitement to such behaviours, including on the part of politicians.”

▻https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/08/greece-evros-wildfire-dead-are-victims-of-two-great-injustices-of-our-times
#injustice #climat #changement_climatique #exclusion #exclusion_raciale

Reçu via la mailing-letter Migreurop, de Eirini Markidi, 23.08.2023

▻https://hellas.postsen.com/local/475765/Fire-in-Evros--Locked-immigrants-in-a-truck-trailer-and-calls-for-a-

He kidnapped and forcibly locked migrants and refugees in a truck, spewing his racist venom on live broadcast

Unthinkable situations unfold in streets of Alexandroupolis. While he rages for the fourth day the fiery fronta man broadcast and even to live broadcast video on social media, in which it has been locked immigrants and refugees in truck trailers and in his racist delusion, he mentions that he has “25 tracks inside the trailer”.

This is a resident of the area, who essentially forcibly kidnaps refugees and immigrants in a truck, spreading the his racist poison. In fact, he calls others to organize and follow these inhumane practices, because as he says about the refugees “they will burn us.”

Characteristically, in his racist delirium he states “We are sleeping! A ride from Chili to Scopo Volis I have loaded 25 pieces I have here in the trailer. Open up a little. 25 pieces. Open the wire a little. They will burn us…, they will burn us. Oops, see? 215 pieces. It’s filled the whole mountain, guys. The whole mountain is full. They are sworn, they are sworn to burn us. Full of holly. Full of holly, everywhere, that’s what I’m telling you guys. Get organized, let’s all go out and collect them. They will burn us, that’s all I’m telling you.”

In fact, some of the comments under the video, which are full of racism and hatred, make a sad impression. Indicatively, some users wrote to him “Turn off the camera and give pain”“Kapstous”, “At sea with the trailer”, cleaning Apostoli etc.

video (without subs): ▻https://youtu.be/LxMugRHvXP0

▻https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/greece-detains-man-calling-migrants-be-rounded-up-police-2023-08-23

August 23, 2023

THENS, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Greek police said they had detained a man who held migrants in a trailer and called on citizens to “go out and round up” migrants he accuses of setting wildfires in Greece.

The man was detained after a video posted on social media showed a jeep pulling a trailer along a dirt road in northern Greece, and he can be heard asking another person to open its doors. Two migrant men can be seen crammed inside the trailer.

“Get organised, let’s all go out and round them up. They will burn us...,” the man, who police said is a foreign national, can be heard saying in Greek in the video.

In a statement late on Tuesday, police said the man, who owns the vehicle, had illegally detained 13 Syrian and Pakistani migrants. Two Greek nationals who allegedly helped him were also arrested.

The three were expected to appear before a prosecutor on Wednesday, after which it will be decided if they are formally arrested and charged.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 13 migrants had also been detained for entering the country illegally.

The semi-official state news agency ANA said a Supreme Court prosecutor has ordered an investigation into the video. In a document published by ANA, the prosecutor is quoted as saying: “Phenomena of racist violence against immigrants are worrying.”

She described the video as “a racist delirium of violence, accusing immigrants of ’burning us’ and inciting others to racist pogroms, calling on them to organise and imitate him”.

Major wildfires have broken out in Greece in recent days, with the biggest front in the northern region of Evros bordering Turkey, from where migrants typically cross into Greece via the river separating the two countries.

The burned bodies of 18 people, believed to be migrants, were found in a rural area in the region on Tuesday.

Reporting by Karolina Tagaris and Lefteris Papadimas, editing by Mark Heinrich

Reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop, de Vicky Skoumbi, 25.08.2023

Le comble de l’horreur : les 13 migrants kidnappés par trois hommes faisant partie d’un réseau constitué de chasseurs de migrants non seulement ont subi l’expérience atroce et traumatisante étant traité comme des animaux, retenus à 13 dans un cagot pour chiens, mais ils n’ont pas été vraiment libérés par la police mais arrêtés. Ils sont accusés d’avoir fabriqué des mécanismes incendiaires et doivent maintenant faire face à des charges très lourdes, le tout sur la foi des témoignages de leurs …kidnappeurs ! Les charges contre ces 13 personnes migrantes sont très lourdes : tentative d’incendie criminel mettant en danger la vie d’autrui, fabrication et possession d’explosifs et entrée illégale au territoire L’avocat de l’homme qui a monté la vidéo où il se vantait d’avoir attrapé « 25 pièces » lors de sa patrouille, soutient que son client les avait surpris à essayer de mettre le feu par des mécanismes incendiaires artisanaux aux abords du tissu urbain et que lui-même et ses deux complices étaient désarmés, tandis que les 13 migrants –les 25 proies de la chasse au "clandestin" étaient finalement 13 syriens et pakistanais- avaient des armes blanches.

Comment trois individus désarmés arrivent à capturer et à enfermer dans une remorque 13 personnes armées de couteaux, c’est sans doute une question qui n’a pas trop préoccupé le juge d’instruction. Car, c’est bien sur la foi de ce témoignage incroyable et qui plus est, en flagrante contradiction avec la vidéo que l’homme qui les avait capturés avait tournée et de ses complices, que les 13 migrants voient leur cauchemar continuer et même s’aggraver. Enfin, quel intérêt auraient ces personnes migrantes qui se tiennent au loin d’endroits habités, en tentant de passer inaperçues au risque d’être piégées par le feu, de s’exposer à la proximité d’une ville pour y mettre le feu avec un mécanisme incendiaire ?

Tout cela arrive à un moment où des députés locaux, dont un de la Nouvelle Démocratie au pouvoir actuellement, appellent la population à se défendre contre les étrangers incendiaires, tandis que des chefs locaux de milices paramilitaires constituées des honnêtes gens rassemblent des foules qu’ils haranguent afin qu’elles prennent la situation en main, et ceci au vu et au su de tous.

Il est évident que les 13 victimes de ce pogrom ont besoin en toute urgence de notre soutien et surtout d’une assistance juridique à la hauteur des risques qu’ils encourent, avec des charges si lourdes, Y-aurait-il des avocats ou des ONG –HIAS, GCR etc- en mesure de fournir une aide immédiate et efficace à ces 13 victimes de violences et de traitements inhumains qui doivent maintenant se défendre devant un tribunal grec ?

Ci-dessous les sources d’information en anglais

▻https://www.efsyn.gr/ellada/koinonia/401767_katigoroyn-toys-13-gia-emprismo-me-martyres-toys-apagogeis-toys

They accuse the "13" [migrants, victims of kidnapping] of arson, with their captors as witnesses

24.08.23 16:02

efsyn. gr

The public prosecutor of Alexandroupolis decided to impeach the uninvited sheriffs who locked 13 refugees and immigrants in a cart. According to today’s proposal from the Prosecutor, the indictment attributed to them concerns incitement to commit crimes, violence or discord with racial motives in combination with robbery with racial motives together and complicity and exposure to danger, while the foreign owner of the vehicle that appears in a video pulling the trailer is also charged with violating the law on personal data.

As far as the 13 immigrants and refugees are concerned, they are charged with attempted arson endangering human life, manufacturing and possession of explosives and illegal entry. But it is a referral that raises reasonable questions, as according to information the charge against them arose from the testimonies of their alleged captors. Therefore, the question arises as to how reliable the accusation of attempted arson is when the arrest of the alleged arsonists was not made by the police authorities themselves, but by those who launched the pogrom against the refugees who have an interest in establishing the case of arson to make their trial a more favorable position. Even according to the statement of the lawyer of the 45-year-old Albanian who speaks in the shameful video, the immigrants were holding knives in their hands, while he was not armed, yet he managed to trap them inside the closed cart. How is it possible for three unarmed men to capture 13 armed and dangerous arsonists ?

Even more surprising is the fact that the three men claimed that they called the police to hand over the alleged arsonists around 5.30 pm and that they finally handed over the 13 men a few minutes later when the police arrived at the scene, to whom they also handed over the alleged incendiary device. Consequently, there is also a significant time gap between the statements that talk about the police being called at the time of the "arrest" of the immigrants at 17.30 and the arrest of the three men which took place late at night after the reactions that caused the release of the video. According to the police, the 13 immigrants were found in the 45-year-old’s cart at the moment they arrested him, so how did they surrender to them at 5:30 p.m.?

▻https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-08-24/no-guns-no-knives-civilian-militias-hunting-migrants-on-greek-border

‘No guns, no knives :’ Civilian militias ‘hunting’ migrants on Greek border amid devastating wildfires

The Supreme Court has ordered an investigation into what it terms an ‘alarming phenomena of violence’ against immigrants and incitement to ‘racist pogroms’

ANDRÉS MOURENZALOLA HIERRO

Istanbul / Madrid - AUG 24, 2023 - 12:47 CEST

The Greek province of Evros, where at least 18 migrants were found burned to death Tuesday in a wave of wildfires ravaging the country, was already a hell on earth for those fleeing their countries in search of a better life in Europe. For more than a decade, countless cases of abuses and violations of the most basic rights against people attempting to cross the territory — where the homonymous river serves as a natural border between Greece and Turkey — have been reported. Beatings, forced deportations, rapes, and illegal detentions have been recorded by human rights organizations. But if the situation for people attempting to reach EU territory was already dangerous, now it has become considerably worse : since the most recent fire broke out last Saturday, groups of local residents have organized themselves into militias to hunt down migrants. It is not the first time such practices have been witnessed, but tensions have been stoked further by the popular belief that they are to blame for the fires.

The chief prosecutor of the Greek Supreme Court, Georgia Adilini, on Wednesday ordered a double investigation to look for possible evidence of “an organized plan” to provoke the fire — although the police later stated that it had been caused by lightning — and to discover more details about the “alarming phenomena of violence” against migrants and incitements to “racist pogroms.”

These investigations have arisen following a video shared on social networks on Tuesday in which a man triumphantly displays the result of what he considers his hunting booty. The man, who is also the alleged author of the recording, opens the hatch of a trailer attached to a van to display an undetermined number of captured men looking confusedly at the camera. Their captor refers to these people as “pieces,” claims there are 25 of them and that he has “hunted them down” because they are responsible for the fires. “The mountains are full of these,” he adds.

“Part of the population thinks that the fires are the fault of the migrants and that’s why they chase them,” explains Lefteris Papayannakis, director of the Greek Institute for Refugees, in an interview with EL PAÍS. “They function as a militia ; they arrest them on their own account and use violence against them.”

The owner of the vehicle and suspected author of the video, a resident of the province of Albanian origin, and two other people of Greek nationality were arrested Wednesday. But Vassilis Kerasiotis, director of the NGO HIAS Greece and a lawyer specializing in migration, says that these militias are far from a one-off phenomenon and are organized with absolute impunity because the authorities prefer to look the other way. “There is tolerance on the part of the authorities, that’s why they feel they can freely publicize these criminal acts,” he adds. “Obviously, when a criminal act occurs, the authorities must react. That’s why they have arrested them,” he insists.

“It’s frightening how openly accepted hostility against migrants is in a certain part of society,” says a spokesman for Alarm Phone, an organization dedicated to receiving messages from migrants in distress throughout the Mediterranean area and passing them on to the relevant authorities.

Appeals to chase and capture migrants are spread through messages on social networks such as Facebook, X or TikTok. The video of the Albanian citizen showing the result of his “hunt” was uploaded to a channel on the Viber messaging network, with 240 members. Another recording released Wednesday shows a man dressed in military attire instructing several dozen residents of Evros to organize another pogrom. “Whoever can, start patrolling [...] But I’m going to ask you, no guns, no knives, or you’re going to get in trouble. It’s illegal. You will be arrested,” he says.

Before the video of the illegally detained migrants appeared, Paris Papadakis, deputy of the far-right Greek Solution party for the province of Evros, published another inflammatory tirade in which he accused the migrants of “obstructing the work of firefighters” and of starting the blaze.

Several left-wing MPs have called for Papadakis to be investigated by the Greek Parliament’s Ethics Committee. In his publication, the far-right MP described the situation as a “war” and called on his fellow citizens to organize raids to “arrest” illegal migrants “in the same way as in March 2020,” during the Greek-Turkish border crisis, when the government of Ankara facilitated the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants on the frontier with Evros. At that time, some locals organized themselves into militias to assist the police and the Greek Army in their defense of the border.

Hiding for fear of deportations

Evros was the main entry route to Greece and Europe until 2015 and 2016, when migrants started using boats to reach Aegean islands such as Chios or Lesbos. However, the transit of refugees has never stopped. So far in 2023, around 3,700 migrants have entered Greece via the land route, compared to some 6,000 in total in 2022, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It is possible that the numbers of those who have made it into Greek territory via Evros is in fact much higher. “More than 250,000 illegal entries were prevented at the Evros border during 2022,” the Ministry of Citizen Protection said in a statement. Some of that number probably crossed the border but were illegally deported by the Greek authorities, a very common practice in the area despite the fact that it violates both Hellenic and European laws. Various NGOs and human rights organizations have collected testimonies and evidence of about 400 such incidents during the last six years, in which some 20,000 migrants were illegally deported, in most cases with violent methods and having been stripped of their money and belongings.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, Alarm Phone passed on alerts about four groups comprising hundreds people trapped in the area affected by the wildfires : three of them on islets in the river and another in a wooded area near the town of Sufi. “The fact that in the face of a fire people are hiding in the forest instead of trying to get to safety gives an idea of the need they feel to hide for fear of deportations,” Vassilis points out.

The Alarm Phone spokesman explains that the authorities contacted them and assured them that they had not found anyone at the indicated points. The organization also adds that on Wednesday, contact was lost with two of the four groups and that only the two larger ones, stranded on islets, remained in contact : one, of about 250 people, had been surrounded by the police. Another, of about 100 people trapped on an islet near the town of Lagina, was rounded up by officers and taken to a detention center. “We cannot say much more about the situation [of the groups], but previously, when the authorities claim they cannot find them, what they do is to attack the migrants and return them illegally to Turkey. It’s an excuse they often use,” says Vassilis.

Groups of civilians hunting for migrants is yet another threat that adds to the already treacherous conditions they face when crossing the border. The route involves a militarized zone where no one is permitted to enter, not even humanitarian aid organizations. They use the dense forests to hide for indeterminate periods of time during which they have no access to food, sanitation, or any other basic necessity. “There is no assistance there. It is almost impossible to help them when they are in hiding. Sometimes they take food with them, sometimes they go somewhere nearby to look for it,” says Lefteris Papayannakis of the Greek Refugee Institute. “We know that sometimes the Turks give them food while forcing them to cross, or give them access to power to charge their phones.”

Papayannakis adds that road accidents involving vehicles carrying migrants are frequent. “They are trafficked in cabs or vans to the cities. It is illegal, so sometimes the traffickers go very fast, in the wrong direction... We know of people who have died or been seriously injured because they were involved in an accident.”

For his part, the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Vassilis Kikilias, has attributed the death of migrants to not having followed the evacuation orders that are sent automatically, in Greek and English, to all cellphones in the affected area : “In Evros there have been 15 fire outbreaks at the same time, which have joined together to form a huge fire,” read one. Satellite images show an immense area in flames, with a front reaching 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) and advancing “uncontrollably” in several directions. The dense smoke from this large fire, together with that of other fronts in Greece, has reached the islands of Sicily and Malta, more than a 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away, and now covers 80% of Greek territory. Kerasiotis, of HIAS, takes a different view of the tragedy : “The cause of these 18 deaths is a combination of the absence of legal and safe entry procedures on Greek and European territory, together with the fact that potential asylum seekers are afraid of being illegally returned to Turkey.”

NGO umbrella group condemns self-proclaimed ‘militia’ groups

https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/3935361-960x600.jpg

An umbrella group comprising 55 non-governmental organizations and civil society bodies across Greece has condemned recent incidents involving civilian self-proclaimed “militia” groups engaging in unlawful acts of violence against refugees and migrants.

In an “alarming incident” in the Evros region, “citizens appeared to threaten and illegally detain a group of migrants and refugees inside a trailer, while using racist and derogatory language and inciting similar acts of violence,” the Racist Violence Recording Network said, in statement issued through the UNHCR in Greece.

“The incident came to light through a relevant video and subsequent articles, which triggered numerous racist comments. These events coincide with the tragic news of discovering dead people, reportedly refugees and migrants, in the Evros region due to the fires.”

The network said it was pleased to note “that the authorities have included the investigation of racist motive” under the relevant article of the Penal Code.

The network also expresses “serious concern regarding the deteriorating climate against refugees and migrants in the political and public discourse, which is even expressed by representatives of parties in the Greek Parliament, in light of the aforementioned incidents.”

“Such phenomena normalize, encourage, and ultimately escalate racist reactions, firstly in the media and social media, that sometimes result in attacks on the street, with the clear risk of irreparably disrupting social cohesion,” it said.

Coordinated by the Greek National Commission for Human Rights and UNHCR in Greece, the network comprises 55 non-governmental organizations and civil society bodies, as well as the Greek Ombudsman and the Migrant Integration Council of the Municipality of Athens as observers.

▻https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1218541/ngo-umbrella-group-condemns-self-proclaimed-militia-groups

#milice #milices

En Grèce, les feux attisent des propos et des actes racistes

A la frontière gréco-turque, les migrants sont tenus pour responsables des incendies qui brûlent la forêt depuis six jours par des groupes d’habitants, qui s’organisent pour les chasser.

Avec plus de 73 000 hectares brûlés en six jours, les incendies autour d’#Alexandroupoli, ville frontalière avec la Turquie, dans le nord-est de la Grèce, sont les feux les plus dévastateurs jamais enregistrés dans l’Union européenne. Devant des paysages de désolation, la tristesse laisse place depuis deux jours à la rage, voire à la haine envers des boucs émissaires tout trouvés, des migrants, désignés comme responsables des départs de feux par des groupes d’extrême droite agissant dans la région.

Mercredi 23 août, 19 personnes (dont deux enfants, selon le médecin légiste), très probablement des migrants, selon les autorités, qui avaient traversé le fleuve Evros séparant la Grèce et la Turquie, ont été retrouvées mortes. Quelques heures après cette annonce, des rumeurs alimentées par des groupuscules d’extrême droite circulaient sur les réseaux sociaux : des migrants auraient été à l’origine des feux, il ne s’agirait pas d’un hasard si les incendies ont lieu sur la route empruntée par les exilés. S’ensuit une vidéo diffusée sur Facebook par un homme qui montre un groupe de migrants enfermés dans la remorque de son véhicule. « J’ai chargé 25 morceaux », dit-il fièrement. « Ils vont nous brûler !(…) Organisez-vous tous pour les ramasser ! » , ajoute-t-il.

Sous la publication, un internaute commente : « Jette-les dans le feu ! » Les propos, repris par les médias grecs, ont choqué le pays et le ministre de la protection du citoyen, Yannis Oikonomou, a réagi : « La Grèce est un Etat de droit, doté de solides acquis démocratiques et d’une tradition humanitaire. Faire justice par soi-même ne peut être toléré. » Le propriétaire de la voiture et deux de ses complices ont été interpellés et ont été inculpés pour « enlèvement à caractère raciste et mise en danger de la vie d’autrui ». Treize demandeurs d’asile, syriens et pakistanais, sont eux aussi détenus, accusés d’être entrés illégalement sur le territoire grec et d’avoir été non intentionnellement à l’origine de départs de feux. Tous doivent être présentés devant la justice vendredi.

Depuis mardi, plusieurs groupes d’hommes de la région frontalière de l’Evros, s’organisent pour patrouiller et débusquer ceux qu’ils appellent les « clandestins ». Dans une vidéo, diffusée par le média en ligne The Press Project, un homme en treillis militaire s’adresse à la foule : « Commencez à patrouiller, prenez toutes les informations nécessaires… Mais s’il vous plaît, pas d’armes, pas de couteaux sur vous, vous allez avoir des problèmes ! Les autorités ne nous laissent pas faire, même si nous faisons face à une guerre hybride ! »

« Le climat est effrayant ! »

Thanassis Mananas, un journaliste local, le confirme : « Autour d’Alexandroupoli, des patrouilles de civils s’organisent pour attraper des migrants (…).Ils échangent sur des groupes Viber ou WhatsApp et appellent clairement à des actes violents. Plusieurs centaines de personnes se regroupent et le climat est effrayant ! », confie le jeune homme.

Les appels à la haine sont relayés par des députés d’extrême droite, notamment ceux du petit parti Solution grecque, qui a recueilli 8,8 % dans le nome de l’Evros aux élections législatives, en juin. Paraschou Papadakis, un avocat originaire d’Alexandroupoli et député de ce parti, est bien connu dans la région. « J’ai des informations sérieuses sur des clandestins qui dérangent le travail des pilotes [des Canadair]. Il faut passer à l’action ! (…) Nous avons une guerre, Messieurs ! », écrit-il sur son compte Facebook. Le député s’adresse aux membres de l’Ainisio Delta, l’association des propriétaires de cabanes de la région du delta de l’Evros, qui, fin février-début mars 2020, avaient coopéré avec la police et l’armée pour empêcher le passage de milliers de migrants, incités par le président turc, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, à prendre le chemin de l’Europe.

En février 2020, dans le village de Poros, le maire, Athanassios Pemoussis, confiait au Monde que « la démonstration de force » des agriculteurs qui avaient quadrillé le fleuve de l’Evros avec des tracteurs avait été efficace. Aujourd’hui, il assure que « les patrouilles n’ont plus lieu, mais que les arrivées de migrants ont repris de plus belle » .

Lena Karamanidou, une chercheuse spécialisée sur la question migratoire, estime que « les feux ont été instrumentalisés par ces groupes d’extrême droite, mais les phénomènes de violence et de chasse aux migrants ne sont pas nouveaux » . En 2020, « ces hommes ont été valorisés, dépeints par les médias grecs comme des héros qui défendent les frontières de la Grèce et de l’Europe. Les hommes politiques, dont le premier ministre, leur ont rendu visite en les remerciant pour leur action et ils jouissent d’une grande impunité, puisqu’ils côtoient la police et les gardes-frontières quotidiennement ! » , explique-t-elle.

Plusieurs ONG qui ont déjà dénoncé les refoulements illégaux de migrants à la frontière, accompagnés de vols, de violences et d’humiliations, s’inquiètent du sort des centaines d’exilés qui seraient actuellement bloqués à la frontière avec les feux. Adriana Tidona, chercheuse à Amnesty International, appelle « les autorités grecques à évacuer de toute urgence toutes les personnes bloquées dans la région d’Evros (…) , et à enquêter sur tout acte de violence raciste ou tout discours incitant à de tels comportements, y compris de la part d’hommes politiques ».

►https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/08/25/en-grece-les-feux-attisent-des-propos-et-des-actes-racistes_6186488_3210.htm

Greek wildfires spur anti-migrant sentiment

As Greece was hit by wave after wave of wildfires this week, asylum-seekers found themselves at the receiving end of several allegations they started fires, leading to an anti-migrant frenzy online.

At least two news reports implicating migrants were soon denied.

The verbal assault intensified after a group of 13 Pakistani and Syrian men were accused by locals of being caught red-handed trying to light a fire outside the city of Alexandroupoli, in the Evros region bordering Turkey.

One of the locals on Tuesday posted a live Facebook video showing the migrants stacked in a trailer, boasting that he had caught them for trying to “burn us.”

“Don’t show them... burn them,” another user commented on the feed.

The 45-year-old man was arrested alongside two alleged accomplices, with authorities insisting that “vigilantism” will not be tolerated.

The three detainees have been charged with inciting racist violence. The migrants were charged by a prosecutor in Alexandroupoli with illegal entry and attempted arson.

But a government source told Kathimerini daily that the evidence so far suggested migrants could more likely be linked to accidental arson by making campfires, rather than premeditated.

A picture of the alleged arson device posted on social media showed two car tyres crammed with styrofoam and wood.

The 45-year-old caught for detaining the migrants — dubbed the “Evros sheriff” by Greek media — was placed under house arrest Friday.

The man, who lives in the area after emigrating from Albania, claimed that he intervened after seeing the migrants attempting to light the device in bushes near a supermarket.

Heightened fears in the area have also given rise to media misinformation.

An Evros news portal on Tuesday said that 20 migrants had been arrested outside Alexandroupoli after exchanging gunfire with police.

Authorities later denied this.

Similarly, national TV station Open on Wednesday issued a correction after erroneously reporting that two migrants had been caught lighting a fire in the neighbouring region of Rodopi.

Northern Greece has been engulfed in a mega fire that originally broke out Saturday and required over 14,000 evacuations, including at a local hospital.

Lightning sparked the fire, according to Alexandroupoli’s mayor Giannis Zamboukis.

By Thursday, the various fronts had merged into a line stretching over 15 kilometres (nine miles), burning over 60,000 hectares (148,000 acres) of agricultural land and forest.

The area is just a few kilometres from the Turkish border. Migrant crossings aided by smugglers occur on a regular basis.

In 2020, tens of thousands of migrants tried to break through this remote northeastern area, clashing for days with Greek security forces.

Work on extending a 37.5-kilometre (23-mile) steel barrier to block the path is to be completed by the end of the year.

After the first fires broke out Saturday near Alexandroupoli, pictures and videos have been posted on social media claiming to show makeshift arson devices created by migrants crossing the border with Turkey.
’They want to destroy us’

Anti-migrant sentiment is strong in Greek border areas, where locals accuse asylum seekers of stealing and say reckless driving by smugglers poses a serious traffic risk.

“I am absolutely convinced that the fires were caused by migrants,” Evros resident Christos Paschalakis told AFP.

“They burn us, they steal from us, they kill us in road accidents,” he said.

“I have no doubt that the forest fire was started by migrants,” said Vangelis Rallis, a 70-year-old retired logger from Dadia, a village near a key national park that also burned last year.

“They burned it last year, and this year they returned to finish the job. They may have even been paid to do it. They want to destroy us,” he said.

The issue also sparked political controversy this week after Kyriakos Velopoulos, the leader of nationalist party Greek Solution, joined the attacks on migrants and praised the man arrested for illegally detaining them.

An MP for Velopoulos, Paris Papadakis, also called on locals to “take measures” as migrants were allegedly “obstructing” fire-fighting plane pilots.

“We are at war,” Papadakis said in a Facebook post.

In national elections in June, Velopoulos’ party and two other far-right groups posted their highest ratings in northern Greece.

In the Evros region, Greek Solution scored nearly nine percent of the vote.
Wildfire victims

Of the 20 people killed in this week’s fires, it is believed 19 were migrants.

One group of 18, including two children, was found Tuesday near a village 38 kilometres (24 miles) from the Turkish border.

Another migrant was found dead in the area of Lefkimmi near the Turkish border a day earlier.
Of the 20 people killed in this week’s fires, it is believed 19 were migrants

The head of Evros’ border guards, Valandis Gialamas, told AFP he expects more bodies of migrants to be found, as crossings from Turkey have increased in recent days.

Amnesty International on Wednesday called on Greece to “urgently evacuate all those stranded in the Evros region and who are unable to move safely due to fires, and to ensure that refugees and migrants who have entered into Greece irregularly can seek asylum and are not illegally forcibly returned at the border.”

▻https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230825-greek-wildfires-spur-anti-migrant-sentiment

Reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop, de Vicky Skoumbi, 25.08.2023:

Tandis que les trois auteurs de séquestration de 13 personnes migrantes sont libres de rentrer chez eux assignés à domicile par le procureur et le juge d’instruction, leurs victimes sont toujours en détention et doivent se présenter au juge d’instruction ce lundi
Bref le signal à la société locale est claire: impunité de chasseurs de tête de migrants et pénalisation des victimes
En même temps; Le parc National de Dadia, détruit en très grande partie par le feu, ne cesse de révéler de personnes migrantes et réfugiées qui ont trouvé une mort atroce dans leur effort de rester cachées pour éviter un refoulement vers la Turquie. Jusqu’aujourd’hui il y a au moins 20 personnes dont deux enfants qui ont connu ce sort; mais il devrait y avoir plus voire beaucoup plus qui ont été piégés par le feu dans la forêt

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Charred body found in Dadia forest; number of migrants burned in Evros rises to 20: ▻https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2023/08/25/migrants-burned-dadia-evros

August 25, 2023

Τhe body of one more person has been found charred in the forest of Dadia in Evros, north-eastern Greece. The fire victim was most possible a migrant, raising the number of migrants who lost their lives in the wildfires to 20.

The body was found with burn injured in the area of Lefkimmi on late Thursday afternoon, at the point where the destructive and deadly fire in Evros passed through and where another migrant was found charred on on Monday, August 21, 2023.

On Tuesday, August 22, the bodies of 18 migrants were found charred in the forest of Dadia. Among the dead were also two children.

Speaking to Reuters news agency, coroner Pavlos Pavlidis said that one group of seven to eight bodies were found huddled together in what appeared to be a final embrace. Others were buried in the wreckage of a shelter destroyed by the flames.

“They realized, at the last moment, that the end was coming, it was a desperate attempt to protect themselves,” Pavlidis said.

DNA samples have been taken form the bodies in an effort to identify them and have an answer to relatives who may seek them.

The fire in Dadia has been raging since beginning of the week.

Spokesperson of the Fire Service, Giannis Artopoios, said on Friday that two suspects of arson are being sought, while investigation being carried out in depth.

“Free without restrictive conditions for the charges of attempted arson & possession of incendiary materials & incendiary device, 4 Pakistani nationals were released.” Racist motivated vigilante accusations against 13 #Evros #migrants are falling apart!

▻https://twitter.com/EleniKonstanto/status/1695545622147858504

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Ελεύθεροι οι 4 Πακιστανοί – Μόνο οι « σερίφηδες » είδαν εμπρηστικό μηχανισμό

Αρκετές αντιφάσεις ως προς τον χειρισμό της υπόθεσης απ’ τις διωκτικές αρχές εντοπίζει ο έγκριτος νομικός Θανάσης Καμπαγιάννης. O ισχυρισμός περί « αυτοσχέδιου εμπρηστικού μηχανισμού » βασίζεται αποκλειστικά στον λόγο των τριών κατηγορουμένων για αρπαγή.

Ελεύθεροι χωρίς περιοριστικούς όρους για τις κατηγορίες της απόπειρας εμπρησμού και κατοχής εμπρηστικών υλών και εμπρηστικού μηχανισμού, αφέθηκαν οι τέσσερις υπήκοοι Πακιστάν, έπειτα από πολύωρη διαδικασία, η οποία έλαβε τέλος με τη σύμφωνη γνώμη εισαγγελέα και ανακρίτριας.

Όσον αφορά τους υπόλοιπους εννέα που βρέθηκαν στο « κλουβί » των αυτόκλητων σερίφηδων της περιοχής θα απολογηθούν τη Δευτέρα (28/08).

Στο μεταξύ, σύμφωνα με πληροφορίες, η ανακρίτρια διέταξε ιατροδικαστική εξέταση για τους « 13 » καθώς φαίνεται πως έχουν τραύματα που τα προκάλεσε -όπως λένε- ο 45χρονος κατηγορούμενος για διέγερση και διάπραξη εγκλημάτων, βιαιοπραγίες και αρπαγή με ρατσιστικά κίνητρα από κοινού και κατά συναυτουργία, έκθεση σε κίνδυνο και για παράβαση της νομοθεσίας περί προσωπικών δεδομένων.

Αντιφάσεις

Για την υπόθεση που έχει ξυπνήσει τα δημοκρατικά αντανακλαστικά αρκετού κόσμου τοποθέτηθηκε ο γνωστός δικηγόρος Θανάσης Καμπαγιάννης, που επισημαίνει αρκετές αντιφάσεις ως προς τον χειρισμό της υπόθεσης απ’ τις διωκτικές αρχές.

- Ένα απ’ τα σημεία που τονίζει είναι ότι τα θύματα αρπαγής δεν κλήθηκαν να καταθέσουν ως μάρτυρες στο πλαίσιο της προανάκρισης, ενώ δύο φαίνεται να κατέθεσαν στην ανακρίτρια.

– Η μόνη περίπτωση που μέχρις στιγμής ακούστηκε η φωνή των προσφύγων είναι η έγγραφη δήλωση παράστασης υποστήριξης της κατηγορίας από πλευράς ενός 24χρονου Σύριου πρόσφυγα, με επιμέλεια των εξουσιοδοτημένων δικηγόρων του, Κατερίνας Γεωργιάδου και Γιάννη Πατζανακίδη, που μετέβησαν χτες στο κρατητήριο του Αστυνομικού Τμήματος Φερών και σήμερα στο Δικαστικό Μέγαρο Αλεξανδρούπολης, σημειώνει.

- Ένα δεύτερο στοιχείο που υπογραμμίζει ο κ. Καμπαγιάννης είναι ότι ενώ ζητήθηκε η κατάσχεση των κινητών τηλεφώνων των τριών κατηγορούμενων δραστών για να διαπιστωθούν οι συνεννοήσεις και οι κινήσεις τους, ακόμα δεν έχει διαταχθεί η κατάσχεση.

– Το τρίτο στοιχείο που υπογραμμίζει είναι ότι η η δίωξη στους μετανάστες για απόπειρα εμπρησμού βασίζεται αποκλειστικά και μόνο στις καταθέσεις των τριών δραστών της κακουργηματικής αρπαγή, με την επισήμανση ότι στην περίπτωση αυτή οι προανακριτικοί υπάλληλοι αστυνομικοί μερίμνησαν να λάβουν μαρτυρικές καταθέσεις.

- Το τέταρτο στοιχείο είναι πως ο αστυνομικός που κατέθεσε στην προανάκριση, προσήλθε όταν οι 13 πρόσφυγες ήταν ήδη κλειδωμένοι στο κλουβί, οπότε ο ισχυρισμός περί “αυτοσχέδιου εμπρηστικού μηχανισμού” γύρω από τον οποίο βρέθηκαν οι 13 πρόσφυγες βασίζεται αποκλειστικά στον λόγο των τριών κατηγορουμένων για αρπαγή και σε καμία άλλη κατάθεση, στοιχείο ή έκθεση αυτοψίας.

Στο σπίτι τους οι « σερίφηδες » κατόπιν διαφωνίας εισαγγελέα και ανακριτή

Νωρίτερα, χθες, οι τρεις που είχαν συγκροτήσει τάγμα εφόδου σε παράνομο πογκρόμ μίσους και συμμετείχαν στην απαγωγή τουλάχιστον 25 μεταναστών, τους οποίους κλειδαμπάρωσαν σε τρέιλερ φορτηγού, εμφανίστηκαν στο δικαστικό μέγαρο Αλεξανδρούπολης για να απολογηθούν αλλά κατόπιν διαφωνίας μεταξύ εισαγγελέα και ανακριτή για το αν πρέπει να προφυλακιστούν αποφασίστηκε να τεθούν σε κατ’ οίκον περιορισμό.

Για την τύχη τους θα αποφασίσει τώρα το δικαστικό συμβούλιο.

Σύμφωνα με τα όσα δήλωσε μετά το πέρας της διαδικασίας ο Βασίλης Δεμίρης, συνήγορος του ιδιοκτήτη του οχήματος που εμφανίζεται σε βίντεο να έλκει το τρέιλερ, « τη διαφωνία αυτή καλείται να λύσει το Συμβούλιο Πλημμελειοδικών εντός πέντε ημερών όπως προβλέπει ο Κώδικας Ποινικής Δικονομίας. Μέχρι τότε έχει επιβληθεί ο όρος του κατ’ οίκον περιορισμού, της απαγόρευσης εξόδου από τη χώρα και της αφαίρεσης διαβατηρίου ».

Αναφορικά με το επίμαχο βίντεο ο κ. Δεμίρης δήλωσε : « Υπήρχε ένα ατυχές βίντεο για τους χαρακτηρισμούς τους οποίους χρησιμοποίησε (σ.σ. ο εντολέας μου) δηλώνει δια στόματός μου πλήρως μετανοημένος. Όλη του η οργή όμως και η αγανάκτηση έχει εξαντληθεί σ’ αυτό το βίντεο. Δεν άσκησε ποτέ βία, δεν χρησιμοποίησε ποτέ οπλισμό, κάλεσε τις Αρχές ως όφειλε να κάνει και οι Αρχές έφτασαν στο σημείο. Θα αναμείνουμε με αγωνία την απόφασή του Συμβουλίου Πλημμελειοδικών. Εντός τριών ημερών θα πρέπει να γίνει η πρόταση και να εισαχθεί από τον εισαγγελέα πρωτοδικών προς το Συμβούλιο και εντός πέντε ημερών θα πρέπει να υπάρχει και το σχετικό βούλευμα του Συμβουλίου », ανέφερε.

▻https://www.efsyn.gr/ellada/dikaiosyni/401935_eleytheroi-oi-4-pakistanoi-mono-oi-serifides-eidan-empristiko-mihanismo

Lena K. sur twitter :

Just finished talking with family back home in #Evros. I’ll write down some of what I’ve heard, at least as an antidote to media coverage focusing on locals blaming border crossers for the fire etc. Note: family & their friends are mostly but not exclusively leftwing.

They don’t seem to have fallen for the narrative of border crossers being responsible for the fire, & were angry with media & govt not counting them among the dead. Lots of disagreements with locals blaming borders crossers & discounting their deaths.

The dominant view was that the worst was averted because of local people. Some participated in firefighting, but (especially in relation to the village we come from) what they did before & after the night the village partly burned - such as hosing water around houses to prevent fires restarting & clearing out unburned grass and weeds. There seems to be a belief that failure (mostly by the local authorities) to clear such vegetation (& also e.g. wheat stalks after fire) contributed to the fire spreading more quickly.

Lots of anger towards the government & local authorities for this - not doing enough for fire prevention. Reports of firefighting equipment breaking down too, a perception of lack of coordination between Greek & EU firefighting forces who came to help.

Lots of anger towards the government for not showing up when the fires were at their worst, too.
The contrast with frequent visits by government officials before the fires (for whatever reason, not only the wall) is not unnoticed.

I’d note on this that there’s a very deep-rooted (and justified) belief in Evros being largely neglected by Athens, the fires seem to reinforce it. Nationalism & anti-migration discourses have been used ’manage’ this (& IMO the far right has been useful) but did not eradicate it.

▻https://twitter.com/lk2015r/status/1695780783288615323

Locked immigrants in a truck trailer and calls for a pogrom

Les 13 migrants détenus à Evros ont été libérés et l’accusation d’incendie criminel a été complètement abandonnée.

Les 9 immigrants, à savoir 8 Syriens et un Pakistanais, accusés de tentative d’incendie criminel à Evros, ont été libérés sans conditions restrictives. Selon dikastiko.gr, la décision a été prise avec l’accord de l’enquêteur et procureur d’Alexandroupolis, qui avaient déjà libéré vendredi 25 août les quatre Pakistanais accusés des mêmes charges. Comme l’a souligné dans son message l’avocat Thanasis Kabayannis, l’accusation de « tentative d’incendie criminel » a été totalement abandonnée. Il est rappelé que des poursuites pénales avaient été engagées contre les 13 migrants pour tentative d’incendie criminel à Alexandroupoli sur la base exclusive des témoignages des trois auteurs présumés de leur enlèvement, à savoir les shérifs « autoproclamés », qui ont « arrêté » et entassé les 13 réfugiés syriens et pakistanais dans une remorque fermée, les ont accusés de tentative d’incendie criminel. Les personnes migrantes ont déclaré qu’elles ont été violemment frappées avec une barre métallique par les chasseurs de tête de migrants.

▻https://www.efsyn.gr/ellada/dikaiosyni/402168_eleytheroi-kai-oi-alloi-9-metanastes-ston-ebro-katepese-pliros-i-katigo

Mais l’ ‘exploit’ des trois chasseurs de tête a fait des émules :

Nouvel incident avec un shérif autoproclamé à Evros.

Déchaînement de l’extrême droite à Evros avec des shérifs autoproclamés appelant toujours à des pogroms contre les migrants et mettant en ligne des vidéos fières de " leurs exploits’’. La réaction du représentant du gouvernement est assez molle. Réaction forte de SYRIZA-P.S.

La nouvelle vidéo publiée sur les réseaux sociaux qui montre ouvertement l’action d’un autre "chasseur de têtes" ne peut susciter que la honte. À Aisimi Evros, le shérif autoproclamé et ses deux assistants auraient immobilisé quatre migrants terrifiés sur un chemin de terre, en rivalisant avec l’homme qui avait capturé 13 immigrés dans une remorque de camion, provoquant l’intervention de la Cour suprême. Dans la vidéo qui circule sur Internet, on entend le « gardien » d’extrême droite de la patrie dire : « Quatre de plus, quatre de plus, des investisseurs... Vous voyez ? A midi, où sont les autorités...où sont les autorités, où sont les autorités...Quatre autres investisseurs, on appelle la police, il n’y a pas de réseau … ». La vidéo a été « sauvée » par d’internautes, l’auteur lui-même parlant de diffamation, il a supprimé les messages de haine qu’il avait publiés. Il n’y a jusqu’à présent aucune réaction de la part de la police ou du parquet d’Evros.

La réaction du représentant du gouvernement est molle. Lors du briefing habituel, le représentant du gouvernement a été interrogé sur le rôle de l’Etat et sur ce qu’il compte faire. Pavlos Marinakis a répondu simplement en disant : "dans tout acte illégal, comme cela s’est produit dans un cas précédent, il est de la responsabilité des autorités de faire leur travail et cela sera fait". Que disent-ils à SYRIZ-PS ? A Koumoundourou, le siège de Syriza, on se demande "que font les autorités compétentes et la justice face à ces réseaux qui veulent imposer la loi du Far West, qui capturent les gens et incitent à la haine ? Ils appellent les autorités et la justice à « intervenir de manière décisive ».

Rappel : il y a quelques jours, les trois qui avaient formé une escouade d’assaut dans un pogrom haineux illégal et participé à l’enlèvement d’au moins 25 immigrés (des « morceaux » selon leurs dires), qu’ils ont enfermés dans une remorque de camion, se sont présentés au palais de justice d’Alexandroupoli, mais suite à un différend entre le procureur et le juge d’instruction sur leur éventuelle détention provisoire, il a été décidé de les assigner à résidence. Le conseil judiciaire qui va siéger cette semaine va désormais décider de leur sort.

▻https://www.efsyn.gr/ellada/koinonia/402105_ta-kommatia-tora-eginan-ependyte

–—

Déclaration des avocats de la défense des 8 réfugiés syriens

(traduction par Vicky Skoumbi)

Après une procédure très longue qui s’est terminé tard dans la nuit au palais de justice d’Alexandroupoli, le juge d’instruction et le procureur ont accepté la libération inconditionnelle des 8 réfugiés de nationalité syrienne et de l’un de nationalité pakistanaise, accusés de tentative d’incendie criminel, le seul élément étant le témoignage de l’auteur accusé de leur enlèvement et de leur séquestration dans une caravane le 22 août. Après la libération inconditionnelle des 4 accusés d’origine pakistanaise le vendredi 25 août, et étant donné que les 13 citoyens syriens et pakistanais n’ont pas de résidence connue dans le pays, on peut conclure que l’accusation portée contre eux a été jugée dépourvue de tout fondement. Les auteurs de l’enlèvement sont assignés à résidence, suite au désaccord entre le juge d’instruction et le procureur, et la décision finale sur leur détention provisoire sera prise par le Conseil Juridique.

L’affaire n’est pas terminée.

Les 13 réfugiés sont toujours détenus administrativement en raison de leur entrée illégale dans le pays. Étant donné qu’ils sont déjà victimes et témoins essentiels d’actes criminels poursuivis en vertu de l’article 82A du Code pénal pour le délit à caractère raciste, pour lequel une déclaration de soutien à l’accusation a été présentée, l’octroi d’un permis de séjour à tous les 13 pour raisons humanitaires doit être décidé immédiatement

En plus de nos propres actions, les autorités policières et le Département des Violences Racistes de l’ELAS (police hellénique) doivent assurer leur séjour légal dans le pays.

Nous tenons à remercier les milliers de citoyens qui ont exprimé leur solidarité avec les victimes et les centaines qui ont aidé à couvrir les frais de leur défense juridique. La possibilité de représenter les migrants signifiait l’exercice pratique de leur droit à la défense et la mise en évidence, de notre part, du caractère raciste organisé des « milices » autoproclamées opérant dans la région d’Evros. De nouvelles séquences vidéo diffusées aujourd’hui montrent que l’incident en question était tout sauf isolé.

Alexandroupoli, 28/8/2023,

Aikaterini Georgiadou, Ioannis Patzanakidis,

avocats de la défense des 8 réfugiés syriens dans l’affaire de l’#enlèvement d’Evros.

▻https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02XULbKN47o1nCQEZE3VB8TiqDsJaa8NLwPFXo5jQ2Tk

To date, the tragic death toll from the #fires in #Evros #Greece has risen to 20 dead, all refugees. The fire is still burning in the area, for the 10th day, while the overall scale of the destruction is terrifying.

▻https://twitter.com/rspaegean/status/1696076952874951005

–----

Στους 20 οι νεκροί του Εβρου

Πρωτοφανές και σε ευρωπαϊκό επίπεδο το μέγεθος της καμένης γης που έχει ήδη ξεπεράσει τα 700.000 στρέμματα.

Στους 20 νεκρούς ανέρχεται ο τραγικός απολογισμός της φονικής πυρκαγιάς που κατακαίει τον Εβρο για περισσότερο από μία εβδομάδα και παραμένει το ενεργότερο μέτωπο στη χώρα. Είχε προηγηθεί ο εντοπισμός 18 μεταναστών που βρέθηκαν νεκροί κοντά σε παράπηγμα στην περιοχή του Αβαντα, ενώ στις 21 Αυγούστου είχε εντοπιστεί ο πρώτος νεκρός από τη φωτιά που μαίνεται στον Εβρο στην περιοχή της Λευκίμμης.

Υπενθυμίζεται ότι ολική απανθράκωση είναι η αιτία θανάτου των μεταναστών που βρέθηκαν νεκροί στο δάσος λόγω της πυρκαγιάς, σύμφωνα με τον ιατροδικαστή Αλεξανδρούπολης Παύλο Παυλίδη. Συνεχίζουν να σοκάρουν τα στατιστικά στοιχεία που δείχνουν το μέγεθος της καταστροφής. Σύμφωνα με την ευρωπαϊκή υπηρεσία Copernicus για τις πυρκαγιές στον Εβρο μέχρι την 6η ημέρα από την έναρξή τους, έχει καεί το 17% της συνολικής έκτασης του νομού και το 45% του δασικού συμπλέγματος που εκτείνεται από τον κεντρικό έως τον νότιο Εβρο, στους δήμους Σουφλίου και Αλεξανδρούπολης.

Η καμένη έκταση υπολογίζεται σε 723.440 στρέμματα και χαρακτηρίζεται « η μεγαλύτερη που έχει καταγραφεί σε ευρωπαϊκό έδαφος εδώ και χρόνια ». Η καταστροφή είναι τεράστια εάν αναλογιστεί κανείς ότι η έκταση του Εβρου είναι 4.242 τετραγωνικά χιλιόμετρα (ή 4.242.000 στρέμματα) και το δασικό σύμπλεγμα των δήμων Σουφλίου και Αλεξανδρούπολης είναι περίπου 1,6 εκατ. στρέμματα. Σε όλα αυτά πρέπει να προστεθεί και το κύριο πλήγμα που δέχτηκε το παραγωγικό μοντέλο της περιοχής με τις τεράστιες υποδομές σε αγροτικό και ζωικό κεφάλαιο.

▻https://www.efsyn.gr/ellada/koinonia/401920_stoys-20-oi-nekroi-toy-ebroy

« Recherche de coupables », #milices organisées… En Grèce, les incendies réveillent la xénophobie

Si les feux ravageant le pays depuis des jours sont un révélateur de l’inefficacité de l’Etat, ils exacerbent aussi le racisme qui se propage dans une partie de la société : la vidéo d’un passage un tabac de migrants par des sympathisants d’#extrême_droite fait polémique depuis ce lundi.

https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/c51ea9690-856390/08W3DxMdBgf4/ShSQ01pBSLznwj0bwsIvOoVKFSgve0tCwDE9euqY.png

D’un côté, il y a la Grèce qui affronte le « plus grand incendie jamais enregistré dans l’Union européenne », comme l’a déclaré ce mardi 29 août un représentant de la Commission européenne. De l’autre, il y a celle qui recherche des #boucs_émissaires.

Depuis près de deux semaines, sous une #canicule asséchant encore un peu plus le pays après un des étés les plus chauds de ces dernières décennies, les flammes dévorent le nord du pays. Dans la région d’Alexandroúpoli, à la frontière avec la Turquie, elles ont provoqué l’évacuation de villages, d’une partie de l’hôpital… Elles ont carbonisé la forêt de Dadia, un parc du réseau européen Natura 2000 connu pour abriter de nombreux rapaces et déjà brûlé l’an dernier. A ce jour, plus de 81 000 hectares ont été réduits en cendres, soit une superficie plus grande que la ville de New York, selon l’agence Copernicus.

Certes, les Vingt-Sept mobilisent actuellement près de la moitié des moyens aériens européens communs pour lutter contre les feux. Mais les onze avions et l’hélicoptère de la flotte européenne, ainsi que les 407 pompiers envoyés pour aider la Grèce, ne suffisent pas à éteindre un brasier qui s’étend sur un front de près de 10 kilomètres. D’après un porte-parole des pompiers, ces flammes sont « toujours hors de contrôle ».

En parallèle du combat quasi désespéré des soldats du feu, la colère ne cesse de monter chez les Grecs. « Il y avait un manque de préparation des autorités », déplore Antonis Telopoulos, journaliste à Alexandroúpoli pour Efsyn (« le journal des rédacteurs »). Prévention insuffisante, entretien des forêts défaillant, moyens des pompiers manquants… Le constat revient depuis des années. Mais bien que le pays ait retrouvé des marges de manœuvre budgétaires depuis 2018, le gouvernement du Premier ministre, Kyriákos Mitsotákis, de droite conservatrice, n’a ni investi dans du matériel récent ni recruté des pompiers. Selon leurs syndicats, il y aurait au moins 4 000 postes vacants.

« Un #discours_dominant inattendu et très dangereux de l’extrême droite »

Il semble que l’incendie ait été déclenché par la foudre. La météo est la première raison invoquée par les autorités. Ce qui ne les empêche pas non plus de se lancer dans « la recherche des coupables », poursuit le journaliste d’Efsyn, ciblant « le récit mis en place par le Premier ministre » Mitsotákis.

C’est le cas concernant le foyer ravageant la banlieue d’Athènes, notamment la ville d’#Asprópyrgos, où vit une communauté Rom dans un bidonville, stigmatisée par une grande partie de la population. « Ces derniers jours, nous avons été témoins, en Grèce, d’un discours dominant inattendu et très dangereux de l’extrême droite. Les médias, le gouvernement et l’administration locale accusent les migrants d’avoir allumé le feu en Evros et les #Roms d’être les responsables des incendies à Apsrópyrgos », analyse le chercheur Giorgos Katsambekis, sur Twitter (renommé X).

Cette inquiétude trouve sa source dans de nombreux discours politiques. Le ministre de la Protection civile, Vassilis Kikilias, a visé des « pyromanes de bas étage » à la télévision, sans que personne ne lui demande de preuve de ce qu’il avançait. Puis il a ajouté : « Vous commettez un crime contre le pays, vous ne vous en tirerez pas comme ça, nous vous trouverons et vous devrez rendre des comptes. » Le président du parti d’extrême droite Solution grecque, Kyriákos Velópoulos, accuse les « immigrants illégaux » d’être à l’origine des incendies. La chasse aux coupables est officiellement lancée.

Elle atteint son point culminant au fleuve Evros. Différents médias tel que Efsyn ou The Press Project ont révélé des vidéos où des habitants de la région s’organisent en milices, comme ils l’avaient déjà fait en mars 2020. Leur objectif ? Chasser les migrants. Paris Papadakis, député du parti d’extrême droite pour la région d’Evros, est allé jusqu’à déclarer « être en guerre ». Il a lui-même participé aux patrouilles, tout en débitant des horreurs : « Les migrants illégaux sont venus ici de manière coordonnée et les migrants illégaux ont spécifiquement mis le feu à plus de dix endroits. »

18 migrants morts dans les flammes

Des vidéos font le tour des réseaux sociaux. Elles montrent des migrants à terre, sans doute battus. Le gouvernement est-il, alors, dépassé par la situation ? Il n’a en tout cas pas condamné ces actes racistes et xénophobes pour l’instant. Toutefois, le procureur général de la Cour de cassation et son adjoint ont appelé à conduire une enquête sur ces phénomènes de milices organisées sur les réseaux sociaux et leur composante raciste.

Plus de 20 personnes sont mortes dans les incendies depuis le début de l’été, dont 18 migrants pris dans les flammes à Evros. Dans la même région, trois migrants ont depuis été arrêtés, ainsi que trois miliciens qui les avaient capturés. Les trois premiers ont été relâchés lundi, sans preuve aucune de leur implication dans l’incendie.

▻https://www.liberation.fr/international/europe/recherche-de-coupables-milices-organisees-en-grece-les-incendies-reveille
#bouc_émissaire #responsabilité

Incendies en Grèce : les exilés désignés comme boucs émissaires

Les incendies se poursuivent dans le nord-est de la Grèce, près du fleuve Evros. Les réseaux d’extrême-droite, très actifs dans la région, assurent que les exilés seraient à l’origine des départs de feu et incitent à la violence.

(#paywall)
▻https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr/Incendies-en-Grece-les-exiles-designes-comme-boucs-emissaires

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Le Premier ministre grec à propos des migrants morts dans l’Evros avec les feux : « ils n’auraient jamais dû se trouver là dans la forêt et le msg du 112 (pour les évacuations) avait été envoyé » …

▻https://twitter.com/News247gr/status/1697237541588447435

–->

Ο πρωθυπουργός, @PrimeministerGR για τους νεκρούς μετανάστες στη Δαδιά από το βήμα της Βουλής « Δεν έπρεπε ποτέ να βρίσκονται στο δάσος και με το μήνυμα από το 112 που εστάλη και στις δύο γλώσσες ».

▻https://twitter.com/MarinaRafen/status/1697246231523905797

Grèce : des militants d’extrême droite arrêtent des migrants au nom de la lutte contre l’incendie

Des hommes apeurés dans une remorque, ou humiliés à terre au pied d’un 4X4 : deux vidéos ont montré depuis le 23 août des arrestations de migrants par des militants d’extrême-droite dans la région grecque de l’Evros, frontalière de la Turquie. Ce genre d’arrestations n’est pas nouveau, mais n’a que rarement été documenté en images. Les agresseurs accusent les migrants d’être responsables de l’immense incendie dans la région, dans un contexte politique anti-migrants disent nos Observateurs.

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"Quatre autres... Vous voyez ? Il est midi et où sont les autorités ? [...] Nous contactons la police, mais il n’y a pas de réponse" s’énerve un homme qui filme cette vidéo publiée le 27 août et tournée dans la région de l’Evros, à une date inconnue. On y voit quatre migrants à terre, au pied d’un véhicule devant lequel se trouvent au moins deux autres hommes debout, manifestement complices de celui qui filme. Ce dernier se montre à la fin de la vidéo, vêtu d’un t-shirt noir et d’un pantalon à motif militaire. L’homme s’appelle Walandi Abrassis sur ses comptes sur les réseaux sociaux où il a directement diffusé sa vidéo.

▻https://twitter.com/parameteoros/status/1695824660884070411

Quelques jours plus tôt, une autre vidéo montrait une scène similaire : un homme filme son 4x4 puis ouvre la porte de la remorque qu’il y avait attachée, dans laquelle on voit au moins quatre hommes apeurés. "J’ai chargé 25 pièces dans la remorque. Organisez-vous, sortons tous et récupérons-les" dit-il, ajoutant : "Toute la montagne est pleine, les gars (…) Ils ont juré de nous brûler (…) Ils vont nous brûler, c’est tout ce que je vous dis", une référence claire à l’incendie, qui ravage le nord-est de la Grèce, considéré comme le plus important jamais enregistré dans l’Union européenne. Selon la presse locale, cette vidéo a été prise à Alexandroúpolis, à quelques kilomètres de la frontière turque, démarquée par le fleuve Evros.

Les victimes, au total 13 hommes et non 25, ont affirmé au site The Press Project avoir été frappées avec des barres en métal : “Ils ont enlevé tous nos vêtements et nous ont filmés. Nous sommes restés là un long moment, en sueur et incapables de respirer" a déclaré l’un des 13 hommes arrêtés.

▻https://twitter.com/EFSYNTAKTON/status/1694020764012359710

L’auteur de cette deuxième vidéo a été placé en résidence surveillée dans l’attente d’une éventuelle inculpation.

“Ces miliciens arrêtent des migrants mais comme ils ne peuvent pas les refouler, ils les remettent ensuite aux policiers”

Panayote Dimitras est le porte-parole de l’Observatoire grec des accords d’Helsinki, une ONG de défense des droits de l’homme qui alerte notamment sur les refoulements de migrants par la Grèce, qu’ils soient fait par la police ou par des civils :

Ce phénomène existe depuis des années, mais cette fois ils ont vraiment décidé d’eux-mêmes de présenter les vidéos de leurs actions. Cela illustre des choses dont des organisations comme la nôtre parlent de longue date, et cela a incité un procureur adjoint de la Cour suprême à charger un procureur local de s’en saisir. Ceci dit, rien n’a été fait face à tous les cas de refoulements illégaux vers la Turquie orchestrés par la Grèce, bien qu’ils aient été largement documentés, donc on peut douter que qui que ce soit, soit condamné ici. Mais toutes ces données enrichissent les dossiers qu’on peut présenter aux institutions internationales comme la Cour européenne des Droits de l’Homme, pour montrer comment ça se passe pour les migrants dans cette région.

On sait que ces milices coopèrent avec la police locale. Dans l’Evros, ces miliciens arrêtent des migrants mais comme ils ne peuvent pas les refouler, ils les remettent ensuite aux policiers, qui ne vont pas enregistrer l’incident parce que sinon, la présence de ces hommes est notifiée et ils ont le droit de faire une demande d’asile et ne peuvent plus être refoulés illégalement.

Les partis d’extrême droite comme Aube dorée ou Solution grecque cherchent à trouver des soutiens dans cette région. Il est clair que ces hommes sont liés à des organisations locales d’extrême droite.

L’auteur de la vidéo publiée le 27 aout, qui n’a pas été interpellé, a réagi dans une interview dans un journal d’extrême droite ainsi que sur la page Facebook d’un leader local d’extrême droite. Il assure qu’il souhaitait seulement apporter de l’eau et venir en aide aux migrants.

Les migrants désignés responsables

Sur les réseaux sociaux grecs, des groupes citoyens s’organisent dans la région avec des appels à chasser les migrants venus de Turquie, comme le montre The Press Project avec une capture d’une conversation sur Viber. Des leaders d’extrême droite ont ouvertement imputé la responsabilité de l’incendie aux migrants qui passent par l’Evros. Le député du parti Solution grecque, ParisPapadakis, originaire d’Alexandroupolis, a notamment écrit sur Facebook : “J’ai des informations sur des clandestins qui dérangent le travail des pilotes [des Canadair]. Il faut passer à l’action ! (…) Nous avons une guerre, messieurs !”.

Le 30 août, le Premier ministre de droite, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, a laissé entendre que les migrants étaient responsables des feux - ce que rien n’étaye - déclarant : "Il est presque certain que les causes sont d’origine humaine. Il est également presque certain que cet incendie s’est déclaré sur des routes souvent empruntées par des migrants illégaux qui sont entrés dans notre pays", ajoutant cependant que "les actes d’autodéfense et les shérifs autoproclamés ne seront pas tolérés par ce gouvernement”.

“L’action de ces hommes est adoubée par la police tout simplement parce qu’ils ont la même idéologie que l’État”

Eva (pseudonyme), une habitante de la région de l’Evros qui suit de près la situation et a requis l’anonymat, ajoute :

En mars 2020, quand la Turquie avait ouvert sa frontière pour faire pression sur l’Union européenne, la police avait officiellement demandé l’aide des civils, et une association locale de pêcheurs de l’Evros, Aenisio Delta Evros avait été très active pour arrêter des migrants. Officiellement, ce n’est plus le cas, la police ne veut pas donner l’impression qu’elle tolère cela. Mais quand on leur demande s’ils le font encore… ils ne répondent pas à la question, ce qui en dit long.

L’action de ces hommes est adoubée par la police tout simplement parce qu’ils ont la même idéologie que l’État : protéger les frontières, utiliser la violence pour le faire, pour eux tout ce qu’ils font est dans l’intérêt de l’État grec. Au sein de l’association Aenisio Delta Evros, on trouve d’ailleurs énormément de réservistes de l’armée.

▻https://observers.france24.com/fr/europe/20230901-migrants-turquie-grece-extreme-droite-milice-incendie-e

« Brûlez-les ! » : les incendies en Grèce attisent la haine contre les migrants
▻https://reporterre.net/Brulez-les-les-incendies-en-Grece-attisent-la-haine-contre-les-migrants

https://reporterre.net/local/cache-gd2/bf/3b2d4db1a65325f529c3afa7a04305.jpg?1693586437

4 septembre 2023 à 09h53 Mis à jour le 5 septembre 2023 à 10h26

Les incendies qui ravagent toujours le nord-est de la Grèce se conjuguent avec une déferlante de racisme. Sous les encouragements de l’extrême droite, des citoyens capturent des migrants qu’ils tiennent pour responsables des feux.
Parc de Dadia (Grèce), reportage

« Vous voyez, là-bas c’est l’incendie de l’an dernier et maintenant ça brûle de l’autre côté. C’est sûr que ce sont eux qui sont revenus pour terminer leur travail. Nous sommes en danger », affirme cette habitante de Dadia, dans le nord-est de la Grèce.

Sans détenir la moindre preuve, elle est certaine que des demandeurs d’asile ont délibérément provoqué cet incendie historique qui fait rage depuis plus de deux semaines. Certaines autorités penchent toutefois pour un départ de feu d’origine naturelle, causé par la foudre.

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Les exilés utilisaient la forêt pour se cacher de la police. © Romain Chauvet / Reporterre

Cette forêt protégée de Dadia est située dans la région de l’Evros, près de la frontière avec la Turquie. Une route empruntée par les demandeurs d’asile qui veulent rejoindre l’Europe et qui s’y cachent pour échapper aux autorités. Près d’une vingtaine d’exilés y ont été retrouvés morts, calcinés.

https://reporterre.net/IMG/png/allain-parc_de_dadia_gre_ce.png

© Louise Allain / Reporterre

Mais le Premier ministre grec, Kyriakos Mitsotakis (conservateur), a déclaré au parlement qu’il était « presque certain que ce feu soit d’origine humaine », allumé sur des « itinéraires empruntés par les migrants illégaux ». Des propos qui font écho à ce que l’on entend sur place.

« Tout ça c’est la faute des réfugiés, ils sont partout dans la forêt et ils mettent le feu, ils veulent nous tuer ! » lance en colère un habitant qui doit évacuer, les flammes se rapprochant dangereusement de son hameau.

Kidnappings racistes

Ce méga incendie n’en finit plus de susciter des propos et actes racistes, dans cette région reculée, pauvre et très encline à voter pour l’extrême droite. « Ce sont les Pakistanais, ils nous envahissent, c’est un problème, un immense problème ici », dit cet autre habitant de la région.

Durant les derniers jours, plusieurs citoyens, encouragés par l’extrême droite, se sont filmés en train d’arrêter des migrants, qu’ils tiennent pour responsables de ce feu. « J’ai chargé 25 morceaux », s’est vanté en vidéo sur les réseaux sociaux un homme après avoir mis une dizaine de demandeurs d’asile dans une remorque.

« Brûlez-les ! » a répondu une internaute à la vidéo. Ces demandeurs d’asile ont depuis été mis hors de cause et plusieurs auteurs d’arrestations poursuivis par les autorités.

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Alors que le gouvernement est vivement critiqué pour sa gestion des feux, la communication du Premier ministre est loin de décourager l’extrême droite. © Romain Chauvet / Reporterre

« En temps de crise, il y a toujours une forte tendance à blâmer les autres, ceux qui ne sont pas comme nous. Ça permet aussi d’éviter d’être confronté à des critiques pour une mauvaise gestion », analyse la politologue spécialisée dans les migrations, Eda Gemi.

Depuis le début de l’été, le gouvernement grec est sous le feu des critiques pour sa gestion des incendies et son manque de préparation. Plusieurs médias locaux ont aussi alimenté ce climat raciste, dans un pays qui se classe dernier de l’Union européenne en matière de liberté de la presse, selon Reporters sans frontières.

Une chaîne de télévision a par exemple rapporté que deux migrants avaient été surpris en train d’allumer un incendie avant de démentir, alors que sur une autre chaîne de télévision, une présentatrice s’est réjouie en direct qu’il n’y ait pas eu de décès, si ce n’est ces « pauvres migrants ».

Un mur à la frontière

« Le soutien aux partis de droite et d’extrême droite semble avoir augmenté depuis 2015, ce qui coïncide avec le pic des arrivées de demandeurs d’asile dans le pays », explique Georgios Samara, professeur en politique publique, qui analyse les mouvements d’extrême droite.

Plus de 850 000 arrivées de demandeurs d’asile avaient été enregistrées sur le sol grec cette année-là, marquant le début de ce que l’on a appelé en Europe la crise des réfugiés.

Mais depuis, la situation a considérablement changé, avec un durcissement de la politique migratoire. Un mur de plusieurs kilomètres a été construit à la frontière terrestre avec la Turquie.

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Des personnes ont été arrêtées pour enlèvement, mise en danger d’autrui et incitation à commettre des crimes racistes après s’être filmées en train d’arrêter et d’enfermer des exilés. © Romain Chauvet / Reporterre

Pendant ce temps, les autorités sont régulièrement accusées de criminaliser l’aide humanitaire et de refouler violemment les migrants, refoulements communément appelés « pushbacks ». La Grèce est donc devenue un point de transit, plutôt qu’une destination finale.

Ce climat de tension fait suite à la poussée de l’extrême droite en Grèce, près de 15 % aux dernières élections. « Les partis d’extrême droite pourraient être les grands gagnants de cet incendie, dans la mesure où les électeurs pourraient vouloir encore plus de mesures extrêmes (contre les migrants) », s’inquiète Georgios Samara. Depuis le début de l’année, plus de 17 000 arrivées de demandeurs d’asile ont été enregistrées en Grèce.

Après le naufrage en Grèce, les autorités grecques et européennes sous le feu des critiques

À la suite de l’annonce de la disparition de plusieurs centaines de personnes dans un naufrage survenu mercredi au large de la Grèce, des dirigeants européens ont fait part de leurs condoléances. Ils ont reçu de nombreuses critiques condamnant les politiques migratoires européennes.

C’est sans doute le naufrage le plus meurtrier depuis 2013. Mercredi 14 juin, vers 2h du matin, un bateau surchargé de migrants a fait naufrage au large de Pylos, dans le sud-ouest de la Grèce. Au moins 78 personnes sont mortes dans le drame et des centaines d’autres sont toujours portées disparues. Selon les témoignages des rescapés, qui ont donné des chiffres différents, entre 400 et 750 exilés se trouvaient sur le bateau parti de Tobrouk, dans l’est de la Libye.

À la suite de ce drame, de nombreuses personnalités politiques grecques et européennes ont exprimé leur émotion sur les réseaux sociaux. La présidente de la Commission européenne Ursula von der Leyen s’est dit « profondément attristée par la nouvelle du naufrage au large des côtes grecques et par les nombreux décès signalés ». « Nous devons continuer à travailler ensemble, avec les États membres et les pays tiers, pour éviter de telles tragédies », a-t-elle ajouté.

Ylva Johansson, commissaire européenne aux Affaires intérieures, s’est quant à elle dit « profondément affectée par cette tragédie meurtrière au large des côtes grecques ». « Nous avons le devoir moral collectif de démanteler les réseaux criminels. La meilleure façon d’assurer la sécurité des migrants est d’empêcher ces voyages catastrophiques... », a également indiqué la responsable.

Les messages de soutien des deux dirigeantes ont entraîné de très nombreuses critiques d’internautes. Des défenseurs des droits des migrants, avocats et journalistes ont notamment dénoncé le « cynisme » des autorités européennes, les accusant de promouvoir une politique migratoire européenne dure.

« Vies innocentes »

La classe politique grecque a également réagi au drame. En campagne électorale en vue des législatives du 25 juin, l’ancien Premier ministre conservateur, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a décidé d’annuler un rassemblement électoral prévu pour la fin de journée à Patras, le grand port de cette région du Péloponnèse, a annoncé son parti Nouvelle Démocratie (ND).

« Nous sommes tous choqués par le tragique naufrage survenu aujourd’hui dans les eaux internationales de la Méditerranée, au sud-ouest du Péloponnèse. Je suis attristé par la perte de tant de vies innocentes », a-t-il déclaré sur Twitter.

Ce responsable politique s’est par ailleurs entretenu au téléphone avec le Premier ministre par intérim, Ioannis Sarmas. Il a également décrété trois jours de deuil dans le pays.

Sur les réseaux sociaux, l’ancien Premier ministre n’a pas non plus été épargné par des internautes l’accusant d’hypocrisie face au drame de Pylos. Le dirigeant a mené une politique très dure envers les exilés durant ses quatre années à la tête du gouvernement. Athènes a été à de très nombreuses reprises accusée de pratiquer des refoulements illégaux de migrants en mer Égée et dans la région de l’Evros.
Des bateaux escortés hors des SAR zones

De nombreux membres d’organisations internationales ont également réagi au drame de Pylos. Vincent Cochetel, envoyé spécial du Haut-commissariat des nations unies aux réfugiés (HCR), en charge de la Méditerranée de l’ouest et centrale s’est dit « très attristé par cette nouvelle tragédie ». Le responsable a également confié son inquiétude « de voir ces derniers mois certains États côtiers escorter des bateaux en mauvais état en dehors de leur zone SAR pour s’assurer qu’ils atteignent d’autres zones SAR ».

De son côté, Federico Soda, directeur du département des urgences à l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM), a plaidé pour la mise en place de « mesures concrètes pour donner la priorité à la recherche et au sauvetage » et de « voies d’accès sûres pour les migrants ».

L’agence européenne de surveillance des frontières (Frontex) s’est, quant à elle, déclarée « profondément touchée » par le drame. Dans le même message posté sur Twitter, l’agence assure que son avion de surveillance a repéré le bateau le mardi 13 juin au matin et affirme avoir « immédiatement informé les autorités compétentes ».

Selon les autorités portuaires grecques, un avion de surveillance de Frontex avait effectivement vu le bateau mardi mais il n’est pas intervenu car les passagers ont « refusé toute aide ».

Les ONG actives dans l’aide aux exilés ont également fait part de leur effroi face au drame de Pylos. Interrogé par Libération, le président de SOS Méditerranée France, François Thomas, a condamné une « nouvelle tragédie insupportable ». « Il n’existe aucune solidarité européenne. Les moyens de sauvetage sont de moins en moins importants, alors que l’Europe a des moyens. Quand est-ce que tout cela va s’arrêter ? », a-t-il dénoncé.

Médecins sans frontières (MSF), qui intervient en Méditerranée centrale avec son navire humanitaire le Geo barents , a déclaré être « attristé et choqué » par le drame survenu mercredi. L’ONG précise que ses équipes en Grèce se tiennent prêtes à intervenir pour aider autant que possible les rescapés.

Enquête ouverte

Enfin, le pape François, très sensible à la thématique migratoire, est « profondément consterné » par le naufrage, a rapporté jeudi le Vatican dans un communiqué.

« Sa sainteté le pape François envoie ses prières sincères pour les nombreux migrants qui sont morts, leurs proches et tous ceux qui ont été traumatisés par cette tragédie », peut-on lire dans un télégramme signé par le N.2 du Saint-Siège, le cardinal Pietro Parolin, et publié par le Vatican.

Les opérations de secours se poursuivaient jeudi matin pour tenter de retrouver des survivants. Des moyens aériens et maritimes sont déployés mais les espoirs s’amenuisent à mesure que le temps passe. Jusqu’à présent, 104 personnes ont pu être secourues mais Athènes redoute que des centaines d’autres ne soient portées disparues, d’après les témoignages des survivants.

Une enquête a été ouverte par la justice grecque sur le sauvetage de l’embarcation. La Cour suprême grecque a également ordonné une enquête pour définir les causes du drame qui a choqué le pays.

▻https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/49698/apres-le-naufrage-en-grece-les-autorites-grecques-et-europeennes-sous-

“They are urgently asking for help”: the SOS that was ignored

The Hellenic Coast Guard attributed its failure to proceed to a rescue mission of the migrants before their trawler sunk to their refusal to receive assistance. International law experts, as well as active and former Coast Guard officials, refute the argument. And emails sent by the Alarm Phone group to authorities which are in Solomon’s possession, prove that the passengers of the vessel had sent out an SOS – one that was ignored.

https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2-1024x576.png

The first recovered bodies of the people who lost their lives 80 km southwest of Pylos between the 13th and 14th of June are transferred to the cemetery of Schisto. At least 78 dead and hundreds remain missing. 104 people have been rescued so far, while the search for survivors continues.

But critical questions about possible mishandling by the Hellenic Coast Guard of the tragedy that led to the deadliest shipwreck recorded in recent years in the Mediterranean remain.

The same goes for the responsibilities of Greece and Europe, whose policies have diverted asylum seekers to the deadly Calabria route, which bypasses Greece (for obvious reasons), while also failing to establish legal and safe routes.
“Denied assistance“

In the briefings and timeline of the events leading up to the tragedy, the HCG attributes the failure to rescue the migrants before the sinking of the fishing boat to their repeated “refusal to receive assistance” in their communications with the vessel.

The HCG had been aware of the vessel since the early morning hours of Tuesday, 13/6, and was, according to its own log, in contact with the vessel from as early as 14:00 local time. But no rescue action was undertaken, because “the trawler did not request any assistance from the Coast Guard or Greece,” the HCG reported.

The same argument is repeated at 18:00: “Repeatedly the fishing boat was asked by the merchant ship if it required additional assistance, was in danger or wanted anything else from Greece. They replied, “we want nothing more than to continue to Italy”.

But does this absolve the Coast Guard of responsibility?

International law experts as well as former and active members of the Coast Guard question the legal and humanitarian basis of this argument, even if there was indeed a “refusal of assistance”. And they point out to Solomon that the rescue operation should have begun immediately upon detection of the fishing vessel. For the following reasons, among others:

- The vessel was obviously overloaded and unseaworthy, with the lives of the peopled on board, who did not even have life-saving equipment, being in constant danger.

– Accepting a denial of rescue or other intervention by the HCG could make sense only if the vessel carried a state flag, had proper documents, had a proper captain and was safe. None of these applies in the case of the sunk trawler.

- Coast Guard officials had to objectively assess the situation and take the necessary actions regardless of how the passengers of the trawler – or, to be precise, whoever the Coast Guard was in contact with- themselves assessed their own situation.

- The fishing vessel was undoubtedly in a state of distress that mandated its rescue at the latest from the moment the Coast Guard received, through Alarm Phone, an SOS message, which was transmitted to the group by the passengers. This SOS call is not mentioned anywhere in the Coast Guard’s communications.

Proof the Coast Guard knew of the danger

In its own chronology of events, Watch the Med-Alarm Phone says it contacted the authorities at 17:53 local GR time.

The email to the competent authorities, which is available to Solomon, indicates the coordinates where the overloaded vessel was located. It states that there are 750 people on board, including many women and children, and includes a telephone number for contacting the passengers themselves.

“They are urgently asking for help,” the email reads.

From this message, it follows also that FRONTEX, the HQ of the Greek Police and the Ministry of Citizen Protection, as well as the Coast Guard in Kalamata, were also informed.

The message was also communicated to the UNCHR in Greece and Turkey, to NATO, as well as to Greece’s Ombudsman.

Listen to the interview given to Solomon by Maro, an Alarm Phone member:

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV4SptggF2U&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwearesolomon.com%2F

Solomon contacted the Hellenic Coast Guard, asking detailed questions: why was there no rescue operation after the migrants’ distress signal via Alarm Phone? Does a refusal to rescue exculpate the HCG? Why was the vessel (for security and identification purposes) not even checked, given it was not flying a flag? Why was the operation launched only after the vessel sank?

A spokesman for the HCG did not answer the specific questions but instead referred to the Coast Guard’s press release.

Solomon also contacted UNHCR, which confirmed receipt of the email.

“Our Office was indeed notified yesterday (ed. note: 13/06) afternoon in correspondence received from Watch The Med – Alarm Phone, which referred to a vessel in distress southwest of the Peloponnese with a large number of passengers. We immediately informed the competent Greek authorities requesting urgent information about the coordination of a search and rescue operation to bring the people to safety”.

“Please be informed that Frontex has immediately relayed the message to the Greek authorities,” Frontex responded to Alarm Phone’s message, in an email seen by Solomon.

“Duty of rescue, not stand by and watch”

The Coast Guard had to treat the incident as a vessel in distress from the very first moment and take all measures to rescue the people, explains Nora Markard, Professor of International Public Law and International Human Rights at the University of Münster.

“As soon as the distress call was received via Alarm Phone, there was clearly distress. But when a ship is so evidently overloaded, it is in distress as soon as it leaves port, because it is unseaworthy. Even if the ship is still moving. And when there is distress, there is a duty to rescue, not to stand by and watch.

International law defines distress as a situation where there is a reasonable certainty that a vessel or a person is threatened by grave and imminent danger and requires immediate assistance.

“That requires an objective assessment. If a captain completely misjudges the situation and says the ship is fine, the ship is still in distress if the passengers are in grave danger by the condition of the ship,” Dr. Markard explains.

International law unambiguously states that, on receiving information ‘from any source’ that persons are in distress at sea, the master of a ship that is in a position to render assistance must ‘proceed with all speed to their assistance’.

In this particular case, the fishing vessel was not flying a flag, so the incident does not even fall under the category of respect for the sovereignty of the flag state.

“When a ship doesn’t fly a flag at all, as it appears to be the case here, the law of the sea gives other states a right to visit the ship. This includes the right to board the ship to check it out,” says Markard.

Apart from the distress call itself, the Hellenic Coast Guard, therefore, had the additional authority to examine the situation.

“All ships and authorities alerted of the distress have an obligation to rescue, even if the ship in distress is not in their territorial waters but at high sea. Search and rescue zones often include waters that belong to the high sea,” explains Markard.

“If the distress occurs in a state’s search and rescue zone, that state also has an obligation to coordinate the rescue. For example, it can requisition merchant ships to render assistance.”
Coast Guard officer: “This was the definition of a vessel in distress”

A former senior officer of the Greek Coast Guard with vast relevant experience seconds this and raises additional questions.

Speaking to Solomon on condition of anonymity, he explained that the vessel was manifestly unseaworthy and the people on board in danger. Even a refusal to accept assistance was not a reason to leave it to its fate.

The same official also points out there were delays in the response of the HCG (“valuable time was lost”) and an inadequate force of assets. He confirmed that refusal of assistance would only make sense in the case of a legal, documented, seaworthy and flagged vessel. “This was the definition of a vessel in distress”.

Similar statements regarding the claims of the Greek Coast Guard were made by retired admiral of the Coast Guard and international expert, Nikos Spanos, to Greece’s public broadcaster ERT:

“It’s like saying I can just watch you drown and do nothing. We don’t ask the crew on a boat in distress if they need help. They absolutely need help, from the moment the boat is adrift.”

▻https://wearesolomon.com/mag/focus-area/migration/they-are-urgently-asking-for-help-the-sos-that-was-ignored

Chi c’era a bordo della barca naufragata al largo della Grecia

Moshin Shazad, 32 anni, era un uomo con l’espressione seria, due figli piccoli, la moglie e la madre da mantenere. Per questo aveva deciso di partire da Lalamusa, una città nel Punjab, in Pakistan. Non riusciva a trovare un lavoro stabile e le bocche da sfamare erano diventate troppe, dopo la nascita del secondo figlio. Voleva raggiungere il cugino, Waheed Ali, che dal 2019 vive in Norvegia.

È partito con altri quattro ragazzi, quattro amici, tra cui Abdul Khaliq e Sami Ullah. Ha telefonato al cugino poco dopo essere salito sul peschereccio stracarico che è partito da Tobruk, in Libia, ed è naufragato il 14 giugno, a 47 miglia da Pylos, in Grecia. “Diceva che sarebbe arrivato in Italia”, racconta Waheed Ali, che ora sta cercando il cugino tra i 108 sopravvissuti, di cui molti sono stati sistemati in un magazzino abbandonato di Kalamata, in Grecia, mentre una trentina sono stati trasferiti in ospedale. Molti erano in ipotermia. Ma Shazad potrebbe anche essere tra i dispersi.

Shawq Muhammad al Ghazali, 22 anni, era uno studente originario di Daraa, in Siria, ed era rifugiato in Giordania, dove al momento vivono la sua famiglia e suo zio Ibhraim al Ghazali. Il ragazzo era partito da Amman per la Libia, e da lì, da Tobruk, si era imbarcato per raggiungere l’Europa. “Non ho sue notizie dall’8 giugno, il giorno della partenza dalla Libia”, dice lo zio. Secondo molti familiari, le autorità greche non stanno aiutando le famiglie ad avere notizie dei parenti o a capire se sono tra i vivi o tra i dispersi.

I superstiti sono per lo più siriani (47) ed egiziani (43), poi ci sono dodici pachistani e due palestinesi, secondo le autorità greche. Tutti uomini. “Non riesco a sapere se è sopravvissuto, sono io che sto dando notizie alla famiglia in Pakistan, ma sono disperato, non riesco a capire e a sapere nulla. Del naufragio ho saputo dalla televisione”, afferma Waheed Ali.

L’imbarcazione su cui viaggiavano Moshin Shazad e gli altri era partita da Tobruk l’8 giugno, era diretta in Italia, lungo una rotta da cui sono arrivati nel 2023 la metà dei migranti partiti dalla Libia.

“Secondo le prime testimonianze sarebbe corretta la stima di 700-750 persone a bordo, tra cui almeno quaranta bambini, che probabilmente erano nella stiva. Se questi numeri fossero confermati, si tratterebbe del secondo naufragio più grave avvenuto nel Mediterraneo dopo quello dell’aprile 2015”, racconta Flavio Di Giacomo, dell’Organizzazione internazionale per le migrazioni (Oim). Settantotto corpi sono stati recuperati finora in mare al largo della penisola del Peloponneso. Ma l’Oim ha affermato di “temere che altre centinaia di persone” siano annegate. Il portavoce della guardia costiera greca Nikos Alexiou ha detto che l’imbarcazione è naufragata, dopo che le persone si sono spostate bruscamente su un lato. L’imbarcazione è affondata in quindici minuti.

Frontex li aveva avvistati
Secondo le autorità greche, un aereo di sorveglianza dell’agenzia europea Frontex aveva avvistato la barca il 13 giugno. In un comunicato Frontex ha confermato di avere visto l’imbarcazione in mattinata, alle 9.47 del giorno precedente al naufragio e di averlo comunicato alle autorità preposte al soccorso, cioè alla guardia costiera greca. Anche la guardia costiera italiana e due mercantili avevano segnalato alle autorità greche l’imbarcazione in difficoltà. Ma secondo la guardia costiera greca, i passeggeri dell’imbarcazione “hanno rifiutato qualsiasi aiuto”, perché i migranti si stavano dirigendo verso l’Italia.

“Nel pomeriggio, una nave mercantile si è avvicinata alla barca e le ha fornito cibo e rifornimenti, mentre i (passeggeri) hanno rifiutato ogni ulteriore assistenza”, ha detto la guardia costiera greca in un comunicato. Una seconda nave mercantile in seguito ha offerto più rifornimenti e assistenza. Ma anche questa volta sono stati rifiutati, secondo i greci.

In serata, una motovedetta della guardia costiera ha raggiunto la nave “e ha confermato la presenza di un gran numero di migranti sul ponte”, è scritto nel comunicato delle autorità greche. “Ma hanno rifiutato qualsiasi assistenza e hanno detto che volevano continuare in Italia”. Tuttavia le leggi internazionali sul soccorso in mare avrebbero imposto in ogni caso ai greci di intervenire per le condizioni in cui l’imbarcazione stava navigando. Diverse testimonianze contestano la versione delle autorità greche.

Il motore della barca si è rotto poco prima delle 23 (gmt) del 13 giugno, da quel momento la barca è andata alla deriva. I naufraghi hanno chiesto aiuto, telefonando alla rete di volontari Alarmphone, già dal 13 giugno, dicendo di avere contattato anche “la polizia”. L’attivista Nawal Soufi, che vive in Italia, ha raccontato che i migranti con cui era in contatto telefonico le hanno detto che alcune imbarcazioni si sono avvicinate, distribuendo delle bottigliette di acqua.

“Il 13 giugno 2023, nelle prime ore del mattino, i migranti a bordo di una barca carica di 750 persone mi hanno contattata comunicandomi la loro difficile situazione. Dopo cinque giorni di viaggio, l’acqua era finita, il conducente dell’imbarcazione li aveva abbandonati in mare aperto e c’erano anche sei cadaveri a bordo. Non sapevano esattamente dove si trovassero, ma grazie alla posizione istantanea del telefono Turaya (telefono satellitare, ndr), ho potuto ottenere la loro posizione esatta e ho allertato le autorità competenti”, scrive Soufi, condividendo la sua ricostruzione su Facebook.

“La situazione si è complicata quando una nave si è avvicinata all’imbarcazione, legandola con delle corde su due punti della barca e iniziando a buttare bottiglie d’acqua. I migranti si sono sentiti in forte pericolo, poiché temevano che le corde potessero far capovolgere la barca e che le risse a bordo per ottenere l’acqua potessero causare il naufragio. Per questo motivo, si sono leggermente allontanati dalla nave per evitare un naufragio sicuro”, continua l’attivista nel suo post.

“Durante la notte, la situazione a bordo dell’imbarcazione è diventata ancora più drammatica. Io sono rimasta in contatto con loro fino alle 23 ore greche, cercando di rassicurarli e di aiutarli a trovare una soluzione”. Fino all’ultima chiamata in cui “l’uomo con cui parlavo mi ha espressamente detto: ‘Sento che questa sarà la nostra ultima notte in vita’”, conclude. Il parlamentare greco Kriton Arsenis, che ha parlato con i sopravvissuti a Kalamata, ha confermato la versione dell’attivista Soufi e ha dichiarato che l’imbarcazione si è ribaltata dopo essere stata trainata con delle corde dai greci. Secondo Arsenis, i greci volevano spingere l’imbarcazione di migranti nelle acque di ricerca e soccorso italiane.

▻https://www.internazionale.it/notizie/annalisa-camilli/2023/06/15/naufragio-grecia
#Frontex

Grecia, strage di Pylos. «Nessuna pace per gli assassini»

https://www.meltingpot.org/app/uploads/2023/06/manifestazione-atene-1536x1024.jpg

Mentre il mare inghiotte i corpi e lo Stato rinchiude i sopravvissuti si riempiono le strade delle città greche

Da tempo, definiamo la politica migratoria europea “necropolitica”, ovvero – seguendo Achille Mbembe – una politica che crea le condizioni strutturali per produrre la morte di un gruppo di persone.

Un’architettura di morte, che vediamo ogni giorno nel regime europeo del confine, sempre più legale, sofisticata, diffusa. Ci accorgiamo ora che ci hanno tolto anche la morte, nel senso che personalmente e collettivamente – noi “vivi” – le diamo, facendo esperienza di quella degli altri, vicini e lontani. Ci hanno tolto anche la morte perché hanno tolto il lutto a chi ha perso una persona cara, la possibilità di piangere un corpo morto, la possibilità di conoscerne il nome, di sapere chi, dove, quando, quanti.

Probabilmente non sapremo mai quante persone sono affogate nella strage avvenuta tra martedì 13 e mercoledì 14 giugno ad 80 chilometri al largo del porto di Pylos. Gli stessi migranti, al telefono con l’attivista Nawal Soufi, parlavano di 750 persone a bordo, di cui molti bambini. La Guardia costiera ellenica dice 646. Le foto e le informazioni disponibili fino ad ora confermano quest’ordine di grandezza, ma le cifre sono destinate a rimanere indicative. Il naufragio è avvenuto nella zona con il mare più profondo di tutto il Mediterraneo: circa 60 km a sud-ovest di Pylos si trova la Fossa di Calipso, una depressione che supera i 5.000 metri di profondità. Gli esperti dicono che il recupero dei corpi sarà quindi particolarmente difficoltoso, il mare li inghiottirà per sempre. Ad oggi, sono solo 104 i superstiti, difficilmente questo numero aumenterà.

Oltre la produzione della morte si situa forse l’annullamento, l’annientamento della persona (della vita). Sono parole che, chiaramente, richiamano il nazismo. Non sapere chi, non sapere quanti, non poter riavere i corpi – massivamente e sistematicamente – è qualcosa che, credo, si avvicina all’annientamento.

I dettagli che iniziano a trapelare dipingono un quadro dei fatti che non solo seppellisce ogni retorica della “tragica fatalità”, ma svela le responsabilità dirette della HCG (Hellenic Coast Guard) nel causare il “capovolgimento” della barca. Come ricostruito dall’attivista Iasonas Apostolopoulos, sulla base delle dichiarazioni del parlamentare Kriton Arsenis, che ha potuto parlare con i sopravvissuti a Kalamata, la HCG avrebbe legato il peschereccio con delle corde e provato a trascinarlo. Sarebbe stato proprio questo tentativo di rimorchio a far ribaltare la barca. Queste ricostruzioni si allineano con i primi racconti di Nawal Soufi.

▻https://twitter.com/ABoatReport/status/1669301668259741696/history

Evidentemente, la differenza – se esiste – tra uccidere e lasciar morire sfuma: non è “solo” indifferenza complice, non è “semplicemente” girarsi dall’altra parte. L’omissione di soccorso è la punta dell’iceberg di un sistema complesso – quello dei confini europei – progettato per annientare la vita. Sistema di cui la guardia costiera è solo un tassello. Non è l’Europa che finge di non vedere, è l’Europa che, strutturalmente, con delle politiche precise e radicate nel tempo, produce morte.

La versione ufficiale della HCG descrive invece il capovolgimento come frutto di una maldestra manovra – in mare piatto – del peschereccio stesso. Dall’altra parte, puntano tutto sulla colpevolizzazione delle vittime: “Ripetevano costantemente di voler salpare per l’Italia e di non volere alcun aiuto dalla Grecia”, si ribadisce ossessivamente nel comunicato. Ma è assodato che questo improbabile “non volevano essere aiutati”, secondo il diritto del mare, non giustifica il mancato soccorso, come chiarito dall’ordine degli avvocati di Kalamata – che si è offerto di supportare gratuitamente i sopravvissuti. Così come è assodato che la HCG sapeva tutto dalla mattina di martedì 13 giugno, alla luce dell’avvistamento da parte del velivolo di Frontex e degli SOS diffusi da Alarm Phone – pubblicati da wearesolomon – e inoltrati anche ad UNCHR, NATO, e al difensore civico greco.

Ma non lasciamo non detti: probabilmente l’HCG voleva trascinare il peschereccio in zona SAR maltese o italiana. Questa volontà è stata più forte di quella di salvare 750 vite umane in evidente pericolo. Forse anche per questo, ai giornalisti è stato impedito di parlare con i sopravvissuti. Dopo delle pressioni, è stato permesso solo ai parlamentari.

Come da copione, nove di loro, egiziani, sono stati arrestati accusati di traffico di esseri umani ed omicidio 1, mentre la maggior parte (71 persone) è stata trasferita nel campo di Malakasa 2, nel “centro di accoglienza e identificazione”: una struttura chiusa, controllata, isolata, priva di supporto psicologico e assistenza medica adeguata. Sono siriani, egiziani, pakistani e palestinesi. Non devono poter raccontare, devono capire che non c’è pietà, che nulla gli sarà concesso.

https://www.meltingpot.org/app/uploads/2023/06/malakasa2.jpg https://www.meltingpot.org/app/uploads/2023/06/malakasa3.jpg

Nel porto di Kalamata, sembra di rivivere i giorni di Cutro: arrivano i familiari da tutta Europa e non solo. Alcuni trovano i propri cari, molti non li troveranno. Nessun aiuto da parte dello Stato, nessuna informazione, dicono. Non c’è pace per i vivi, non c’è pace per i morti. Finora sono stati recuperati ed identificati 78 corpi, saranno trasportati con dei camion frigorifero al cimitero di Schisto.

Intanto, si riempiono le strade della Grecia. Dal porto di Pylos ad Atene, Salonicco, Patrasso, Karditsa, Kalamata, migliaia di persone si sono messe in marcia. Ad Atene, giovedì sera, una marea umana si è scontrata con i soliti gangster in divisa.

La risposta dello Stato è sempre la stessa, anche con i solidali. Sono piazze commosse ma piene di rabbia. Una rabbia degna. Puntano chiaramente il dito verso gli assassini: non solo la guardia costiera, ma lo Stato greco, l’Unione Europea, Frontex, questo sistema coloniale e razzista.

Domenica 18 giugno nel pomeriggio un altro corteo, chiamato dalla Open Assembly Against Pushbacks and Border Violence, si muoverà dal Pireo verso gli uffici di Frontex: l’agenzia europea non potrà giocare la parte dei “buoni” che avevano segnalato per tempo la barca in pericolo.

Dalle strade, si leva una promessa: non dimentichiamo, non perdoniamo.

Senza funerali
▻https://i.imgur.com/gwzd0yG.jpg
▻https://twitter.com/maurobiani/status/1669719647107661824

Did migrants reject help before deadly Greek wreck, or beg for it? Coast guard, activists disagree

This undated handout image provided by Greece’s coast guard on Wednesday, June14, 2023, shows scores of people covering practically every free stretch of deck on a battered fishing boat that later capsized and sank off southern Greece. A fishing boat carrying migrants trying to reach Europe capsized and sank off Greece on Wednesday, authorities said, leaving at least 79 dead and many more missing in one of the worst disasters of its kind this year.(Hellenic Coast Guard via AP)
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This undated handout image provided by Greece’s coast guard on Wednesday, June14, 2023, shows scores of people covering practically every free stretch of deck on a battered fishing boat that later capsized and sank off southern Greece. A fishing boat carrying migrants trying to reach Europe capsized and sank off Greece on Wednesday, authorities said, leaving at least 79 dead and many more missing in one of the worst disasters of its kind this year.(Hellenic Coast Guard via AP)

This much is clear: On June 9, an old steel fishing trawler left eastern Libya for Italy, carrying far too many people.

As many as 750 men, women and children from Syria, Egypt, the Palestinian territories and Pakistan were on board, fleeing hopelessness in their home countries and trying to reach relatives in Europe.

Five days later, the trawler sank off the coast of Greece in one of the deepest parts of the Mediterranean Sea. Only 104 people, all men, survived. The remains of 78 people were recovered.

There are still more questions than answers about what led up to one of the worst shipwrecks in recent Mediterranean history.

Activists, migration experts and opposition politicians have criticized Greek authorities for not acting earlier to rescue the migrants, even though a coast guard vessel escorted the trawler for hours and watched helplessly as it sank.

Below is a timeline of events based on reports from Greek authorities, a commercial ship, and activists who said they were in touch with passengers. They describe sequences of events that at times converge, but also differ in key ways.

The Greek Coast Guard said that the overcrowded trawler was moving steadily toward Italy, refusing almost all assistance, until minutes before it sank. This is in part supported by the account of a merchant tanker that was nearby.

But activists said that people on board were in danger and made repeated pleas for help more than 15 hours before the vessel sank.

International maritime law and coast guard experts said that conditions on the trawler clearly showed it was at risk, and should have prompted an immediate rescue operation, regardless of what people on board may have said.

Much of these accounts could not immediately be independently verified.

Missing from this timeline is the testimony of survivors, who have been transferred to a closed camp and kept away from journalists.

All times are given in Greece’s time zone.

FIRST CONTACT

Around 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Italian authorities informed Greece that a fishing trawler packed with migrants was in international waters southwest of the Peloponnese. Greece said the Italian authorities were alerted by an activist.

Around the same time, human rights activist Nawal Soufi wrote on social media that she had been contacted by a woman on a boat that had left Libya four days earlier.

The migrants had run out of water, Soufi wrote, and shared GPS coordinates through a satellite phone showing they were approximately 100 km (62 miles) from Greece.

“Dramatic situation on board. They need immediate rescue,” she wrote Tuesday morning.

Over the course of the day, Soufi described some 20 calls with people on the trawler in a series of social media posts and a later audio recording. The Associated Press could not reach Soufi.

A surveillance aircraft from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex spotted the overcrowded trawler at 11:47 p.m. and notified Greek authorities, the agency told AP. On Saturday, Frontex told AP its plane had to leave the scene after 10 minutes due to a fuel shortage but that it had also shared with Greece details and photos of the “heavily overcrowded” trawler.

DIFFERING ACCOUNTS OF CONDITIONS ON BOARD

At 2 p.m., Greek authorities established contact with someone on the trawler. The vessel “did not request any assistance from the Coast Guard or from Greece,” according to a statement.

But activists said that people on the boat were already in desperate need by Tuesday afternoon.

At 3:11 p.m., Soufi wrote, passengers told her that seven people were unconscious.

Around the same time, Alarm Phone, a network of activists with no connection to Soufi who run a hotline for migrants in need of rescue, said they received a call from a person on the trawler.

“They say they cannot survive the night, that they are in heavy distress,” Alarm Phone wrote.

At 3:35 p.m., a Greek Coast Guard helicopter located the trawler. An aerial photo released showed it packed, with people covering almost every inch of the deck.

From then until 9 p.m., Greek authorities said, they were in contact with people on the trawler via satellite phone, radio, and shouted conversations conducted by merchant vessels and a Coast Guard boat that arrived at night. They added that people on the trawler repeatedly said they wanted to continue to Italy and refused rescue.

MERCHANT SHIPS BRING SUPPLIES

At 5:10 p.m., Greek authorities asked a Maltese-flagged tanker called the Lucky Sailor to bring the trawler food and water.

According to the company that manages the Lucky Sailor, people on the trawler “were very hesitant to receive any assistance,” and shouted that “they want to go to Italy.” Eventually, Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Limited wrote in a statement, the trawler was persuaded to accept supplies.

Around 6 p.m., a Greek Coast Guard helicopter reported that the trawler was “sailing on a steady course and heading.”

But at 6:20 p.m., Alarm Phone said that people on board reported that they were not moving, and that the “captain” had abandoned the trawler in a small boat.

“Please any solution,” someone on board told Alarm Phone.

The Greek authorities’ account suggested the trawler stopped around that time to receive supplies from the Lucky Sailor.

At 6:55 p.m., Soufi wrote, migrants on board told her that six people had died and another two were very sick. No other account so far has mentioned deaths prior to the shipwreck, and the AP has not been able to verify this.

Around 9 p.m., Greek authorities asked a second, Greek-flagged, merchant vessel to deliver water, and allowed the Lucky Sailor to leave.

Then, at around 10:40 p.m., a Coast Guard boat from Crete reached the trawler, and remained nearby until it sank. According to the Coast Guard, the vessel “discreetly observed” the trawler from a distance. Once again, the Coast Guard said, the trawler did not appear to have any problems and was moving “at a steady course and speed.”

THE FINAL HOURS

According to Soufi’s account, attempts to deliver supplies may have contributed to the trawler’s troubles.

Shortly after 11 p.m., she wrote that the trawler began rocking as its passengers tried to catch water bottles from another vessel. According to people on board, ropes were tied to the ship, destabilizing it and causing a “state of panic,” she said.

The report from the Lucky Sailor said no lines were tied to the trawler, and supplies were delivered in watertight barrels tied to a rope.

“Those on board the boat caught the line and pulled,” the company managing the Lucky Sailor told the AP.

The other merchant vessel did not immediately reply to the AP’s questions.

A spokesman for the Greek Coast Guard said late Friday that its vessel had briefly attached a light rope to the trawler at around 11 p.m. He stressed that none of the vessels had attempted to tow the trawler.

Commander Nikos Alexiou told Greek channel Ant1 TV that the Coast Guard wanted to check on the trawler’s condition, but people on board again refused help and untied the rope before continuing course.

Soufi’s last contact with the trawler was at 11 p.m. She said later in a voice memo that “they never expressed the will to continue sailing to Italy,” or refused assistance from Greece. “They were in danger and needed help.”

THE WRECK

According to authorities, the trawler kept moving until 1:40 a.m. Wednesday, when its engine stopped. The Coast Guard vessel then got closer to “determine the problem.”

A few minutes later, Alarm Phone had a final exchange with people on the trawler. The activists were able to make out only: “Hello my friend … The ship you send is …” before the call cut off.

At 2:04 a.m., more than 15 hours after Greek authorities first heard of the case, the Coast Guard reported that the trawler began rocking violently from side to side, and then capsized.

People on deck were thrown into the sea, while others held onto the boat as it flipped. Many others, including women and children, were trapped below deck.

Fifteen minutes later, the trawler vanished underwater.

In the darkness of night, 104 people were rescued, and brought to shore on the Mayan Queen IV, a luxury yacht that was sailing in the vicinity of the shipwreck. Greek authorities retrieved 78 bodies. No other people have been found since Wednesday.

As many as 500 people are missing.

▻https://apnews.com/article/migrants-shipwreck-rescue-greece-coast-guard-c160027a00d1ad2f859b97e3e8e7643

Après le naufrage, des survivants dénoncent les gardes-côtes grecs et Frontex

La version officielle grecque sur l’un des pires naufrages en Méditerranée est mise à mal par les témoignages de survivants. Le rôle de Frontex, l’agence européenne chargée des frontières extérieures, est également pointé du doigt. Une enquête a été ouverte.

Plus de quatre jours après le naufrage d’un bateau de pêche en provenance de Libye, où s’étaient embarquées jusqu’à 750 personnes – notamment des ressortissantes et ressortissants égyptiens, syriens et pakistanais –, l’espoir est mince de retrouver des survivant·es au large des côtes sud de la Grèce.

Les questions sont nombreuses en particulier sur l’action des gardes-côtes grecs, accusés par certains témoignages d’avoir provoqué l’accident. La Cour suprême grecque a ordonné une enquête sur les circonstances du drame, l’un des pires naufrages en Méditerranée avec des centaines de morts. Pour l’heure, 104 personnes ont été rescapées et 78 corps récupérés.

Jeudi après-midi, Kriton Arsenis, ancien eurodéputé, a rencontré des survivants dans le port de Kalamata, sur la péninsule du Péloponnèse, en tant que membre de la délégation de Mera25, le parti de Yánis Varoufákis. « Les réfugiés nous ont dit que l’embarcation a chaviré pendant qu’elle était tirée par le bateau des gardes-côtes », a-t-il raconté.

« Les survivants nous disent que le bateau a basculé alors qu’il faisait l’objet d’une manœuvre où il était tiré par les gardes-côtes helléniques, a déclaré de son côté Vincent Cochetel, envoyé spécial du Haut Commissariat aux réfugiés pour la Méditerranée occidentale et centrale. Ils nous disent qu’il était tiré non pas vers les côtes grecques, mais en dehors de la zone de secours en mer grecque. »

Ces témoignages vont à l’encontre de la version officielle, qui, jusqu’à vendredi, expliquait que les gardes-côtes n’étaient pas intervenus.

La Grèce est régulièrement accusée de refouler des migrant·es en mer, provoquant la crainte, derrière une aide supposée, d’être en réalité éloigné·es du territoire – une pratique illégale au regard du droit international maritime et de la Convention de Genève, qui doivent permettre à toute personne en situation de détresse d’être secourue et acheminée vers un port dit « sûr » et de pouvoir, si elle le souhaite, déposer une demande d’asile dans le pays qu’elle tentait de rallier.

En mai dernier, des révélations du New York Times ont mis en lumière cette pratique, grâce à une vidéo d’un « push-back » prise sur le fait. Mediapart avait documenté un cas semblable en 2022, qui avait provoqué la mort de deux demandeurs d’asile.
Le patron de Frontex sur place

Le rôle de Frontex, l’agence européenne chargée des frontières extérieures, est également mis en question, car selon les autorités portuaires grecques, un avion de surveillance de Frontex avait repéré le bateau mardi après-midi mais les secours ne sont pas intervenus car les passagers ont « refusé toute aide ». Son patron Hans Leijtens s’est rendu à Kalamata pour établir les faits et « mieux comprendre ce qui s’est passé car Frontex a joué un rôle » dans ce naufrage « horrible ».

« On ne demande pas aux personnes à bord d’un bateau à la dérive s’ils veulent de l’aide […], il aurait fallu une aide immédiate », a affirmé pour sa part à la télévision grecque ERT Nikos Spanos, expert international des incidents maritimes. D’après Alexis Tsipras, le chef de l’opposition grecque de gauche, qui s’est entretenu avec des rescapés, « il y a eu un appel à l’aide ».

Le HCR et l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM), deux agences des Nations unies, se sont félicités des enquêtes « qui ont été ordonnées en Grèce sur les circonstances qui ont conduit au chavirement du bateau et à la perte de tant de vies », tout en rappelant que « le devoir de secourir sans délai les personnes en détresse en mer est une règle fondamentale du droit maritime international ».

Le HCR et l’OIM ont rappelé vendredi que depuis le début de l’année, au moins 72 778 migrants sont arrivés en Europe (dont 54 205 en Italie), par les routes migratoires en Méditerranée orientale, centrale, et occidentale ou par le nord-ouest de l’Afrique. Dans le même temps, au moins 1 037 migrants sont morts ou portés disparus.

Neuf Égyptiens ont été arrêtés dans le port de Kalamata. Ils sont âgés de 20 à 40 ans et soupçonnés de « trafic illégal » d’êtres humains. Parmi les suspects, qui devraient comparaître lundi devant le juge d’instruction, figure le capitaine de l’embarcation qui a chaviré, d’après une source portuaire à l’AFP.

Areti Glezou, travailleuse sociale au sein de l’ONG grecque Thalpo était en première ligne aux côtés des rescapés. Manifestement choquée, elle se souviendra longtemps de certains détails à glacer le sang. « Un homme me racontait qu’il a nagé pendant deux heures au côté de corps d’enfants avant d’être secouru. » Elle s’arrête, reprend son souffle et, les larmes aux yeux, elle poursuit : « Oui, ça, ils me l’ont tous dit, les cales étaient remplies de femmes et d’enfants. » Aucun n’aura été retrouvé vivant.

Plus de 120 Syriens se trouvaient à bord et un grand nombre d’entre eux sont portés disparus, ont indiqué vendredi à l’AFP des membres de leurs familles et des militants locaux. La plupart sont originaires de la province instable de Deraa dans le sud du pays. Berceau du soulèvement antirégime déclenché en 2011, elle est revenue sous le contrôle des forces gouvernementales en juillet 2018. Plusieurs d’entre eux ont gagné la Libye, d’où était parti le bateau, en transitant par des pays voisins comme le Liban, la Jordanie ou encore l’Arabie saoudite.

Vendredi matin, on a cependant vu des larmes de joie sur le port de Kalamata. Des deux côtés des barrières qui entourent le hangar où logent les rescapés, deux frères se sont aperçus. Fardi a retrouvé Mohamed vivant. Le grand a retrouvé le petit. Autour d’eux les sourires fleurissent sur les visages. Pour quelques brefs instants, journalistes, humanitaires et hommes en uniformes redeviennent d’abord des êtres humains. Comme un rayon de lumière qui illumine soudain un océan de tristesse.

Une demi-heure plus tard, des bus viennent chercher les rescapés pour les emmener au camp de Malakasa dans la région d’Athènes. Le hangar est désormais vide.

►https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/170623/apres-le-naufrage-des-survivants-denoncent-les-gardes-cotes-grecs-et-front

Naufrage de migrants en Méditerranée : ce que l’on sait sur les responsabilités des garde-côtes grecs

Depuis le naufrage dramatique qui a fait 78 morts et possiblement plusieurs centaines d’autres mercredi 14 juin, les critiques ciblent l’absence d’intervention préalable des gardes-côtes grecs. Ces derniers rejettent la faute sur les passagers du navire.

Le naufrage d’un bateau de migrants mercredi 14 juin avec des centaines de personnes à bord, au large de la Grèce, a soulevé de nombreuses questions sur les responsabilités des autorités. Voici ce que l’on sait depuis que ce chalutier vétuste a chaviré et coulé dans les eaux internationales, faisant au moins 78 morts.
L’opération de sauvetage

Les garde-côtes grecs ont affirmé mercredi matin « avoir été prévenus mardi par les autorités italiennes concernant un bateau avec à bord un grand nombre d’étrangers ». Des patrouilleurs grecs ont été mobilisés pour le repérer. « C’est un appareil aérien de Frontex [la décriée agence européenne de gardes-frontières, ndlr] qui a le premier repéré le bateau mardi après-midi, puis deux bateaux qui naviguaient dans la zone », selon les garde-côtes.

Nawal Soufi, une bénévole travaillant pour la ligne téléphonique d’assistance à des migrants en danger Alarm Phone, assure sur son compte Facebook avoir reçu un SOS d’un bateau avec 750 personnes à bord en provenance de Libye.

A 22 h 40 mardi, le chalutier notifie une panne du moteur. Le patrouilleur à proximité « a immédiatement tenté d’approcher le chalutier pour déterminer le problème », ont noté les garde-côtes. Vingt-quatre minutes plus tard, le patron du patrouilleur a annoncé par radio que le bateau avait chaviré. Il a coulé en quinze minutes.
La défausse grecque contre les migrants

Selon les garde-côtes grecs, « il n’y a pas eu de demande d’aide » des personnes à bord du bateau de pêche. « Après de nombreux appels du centre opérationnel des garde-côtes grecs pour les secourir, la réponse du bateau de pêche a été négative », selon le communiqué. « La salle des opérations […] a été en contact répété avec le bateau de pêche. Ils ont constamment répété qu’ils souhaitaient naviguer vers l’Italie », selon la même source.

Le porte-parole du gouvernement a également expliqué vendredi que « les garde-côtes se sont rapprochés du bateau, ils ont jeté une corde pour le stabiliser, mais les migrants ont refusé l’aide ». « Ils disaient ‘‘No help, Go Italy’’ [’’Pas d’aide, on va en Italie’’, ndlr] », a-t-il ajouté.

Pour sa part, le porte-parole de la police portuaire Nikolaos Alexiou a souligné qu’on ne pouvait « pas remorquer un bateau avec un si grand nombre de gens à bord par la force, il faut qu’ils coopèrent ».

Selon un réfugié syrien en Allemagne, Reber Hebun, arrivé en Grèce pour retrouver son frère de 24 ans, survivant du naufrage, « les garde-côtes grecs n’ont rien fait pour les aider au début alors qu’ils étaient près d’eux », a-t-il dit après avoir parlé avec son frère. « Un bateau commercial a donné de l’eau et de la nourriture et tout le monde s’est précipité, le bateau a été déstabilisé à ce moment », selon lui.
Les critiques envers les garde-côtes grecs

Des experts et des ONG ont mis en cause les garde-côtes grecs qui auraient dû intervenir quoi qu’il arrive, selon eux. Pour Vincent Cochetel, envoyé spécial du Haut-Commissariat de l’ONU pour les réfugiés (HCR) pour la Méditerranée centrale et occidentale, « l’argument grec selon lequel les personnes ne voulaient pas être secourues pour poursuivre leur route vers l’Italie ne tient pas ». « C’est aux autorités grecques qu’il incombait de procéder ou, au moins, de coordonner une opération de sauvetage, en utilisant soit leurs propres navires de sauvetage soit en faisant appel à tout autre bateau sur zone, y compris à des navires marchands », a-t-il jugé. « Selon le droit maritime international, les autorités grecques auraient dû coordonner plus tôt cette opération de sauvetage, dès lors que Frontex avait repéré ce bateau en détresse », a-t-il poursuivi.

« On ne demande pas aux personnes à bord d’un bateau à la dérive s’ils veulent de l’aide […] il aurait fallu une aide immédiate », a critiqué pour sa part Nikos Spanos, expert international des incidents maritimes.

Hans Leijtens, le patron de Frontex, s’est rendu jeudi à Kalamata pour chercher à « mieux comprendre ce qui s’est passé car Frontex a joué un rôle » dans cet « horrible » naufrage.

Vendredi, l’ONU a demandé des investigations rapides et des mesures « urgentes et décisives » pour éviter de nouveaux drames. « Il doit avoir une enquête approfondie sur les événements qui se sont déroulés au cours de cette tragédie. Et j’espère que nous pourrons trouver des réponses et apprendre de l’expérience », a souligné Jeremy Laurence, porte-parole du Haut-Commissariat aux droits de l’homme.
Des centaines de personnes à bord

78 corps ont jusqu’ici été retrouvés en mer au large des côtes de la péninsule du Péloponnèse, selon les garde-côtes grecs, et 104 personnes ont pu être secourues à temps. Mais le bilan serait en réalité bien plus lourd. Le porte-parole du gouvernement grec, Ilias Siakantaris, avait assuré mercredi que des informations non confirmées faisaient état de 750 personnes à bord du chalutier. L’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM) « redoute que des centaines de personnes supplémentaires » se soient noyées « dans l’une des tragédies les plus dévastatrices en Méditerranée en une décennie ».

Parmi les personnes qui se trouvaient à bord, figuraient notamment plus 120 Syriens, et un grand nombre d’entre eux sont portés disparus, ont déploré vendredi des membres de leurs familles et des militants locaux. La plupart de ces migrants sont originaires de la province instable de Deraa dans le sud de la Syrie. Plusieurs d’entre eux ont gagné la Libye, d’où était parti le bateau, en transitant par des pays voisins comme le Liban, la Jordanie ou encore l’Arabie Saoudite, selon les mêmes sources.

Les recherches se poursuivent mais les espoirs de retrouver des survivants s’amenuisent, trois jours après le drame. De nombreuses femmes et enfants auraient voyagé dans la cale du navire, qui a sombré dans une zone de la Méditerranée de plusieurs milliers de mètres de profondeur, la fosse Calypso.

Par ailleurs, 9 personnes de nationalité égyptienne soupçonnées d’être des passeurs ont été arrêtées à la suite du drame.

▻https://www.liberation.fr/international/europe/naufrage-de-migrants-en-mediterranee-ce-que-lon-sait-sur-les-responsabili

Message de Vicky Skoumbi envoyé sur la mailing-list de Migreurop, le 18 juin 2023 :

une vidéo glaçante avec un #témoignage de survivants qui fait état de la #responsabilité criminelle des #garde-côtes_grecs, avec la traduction d’un post d’Iasonas Apostolopoulos

▻https://www.facebook.com/519820384/videos/5877893008981441

« Les garde-côtes grecs se sont approchés de nous et nous ont lancé une corde bleue. Ils ont commencé à nous remorquer. La façon dont ils nous tiraient n’était pas correcte. Nous criions. Le navire a alors commencé à prendre de la gîte sur la gauche, les garde-côtes se sont tournés vers le côté opposé et notre navire a commencé à prendre de la gîte sur le côté et à couler.

Nous essayions de grimper sur le bateau, nous voulions survivre.

Les garde-côtes ont détaché la corde. Nous criions à l’aide. Ils ont fait tourner leur navire, créant une grosse vague, et notre bateau a complètement chaviré. Les personnes qui se trouvaient sur le côté du bateau se sont retrouvées en dessous. Nous pouvions entendre les gens dans la cale frapper sur la tôle en fer.

Le bateau a complètement coulé ».

–—

Le journaliste Fallah Elias de la chaîne allemande WDR a partagé sur Twitter le témoignage absolument choquant et horrifiant d’un naufragé secouru.

▻https://twitter.com/falahelias/status/1670127871170322432

Dans la vidéo, d’autres survivants pakistanais confirment que les garde-côtes grecs ont fait couler le bateau en le remorquant.

Ni une, ni deux, ni trois, de nombreux témoignages désignent le gouvernement grec et les garde-côtes comme les seuls responsables du naufrage et de la noyade de centaines de personnes à Pylos. Au lieu de les secourir, ils ont tiré le bateau avec une corde jusqu’à ce qu’il chavire. Probablement pour les faire sortir de la zone de sauvetage grecque.

Selon certaines informations, une centaine d’enfants figureraient parmi les morts.

Si tout cela est vrai, il s’agit du plus grand homicide de l’histoire de l’Europe d’après-guerre.

NE LAISSONS PAS L’AFFAIRE ÊTRE ÉTOUFFÉE !

▻https://twitter.com/falahelias/status/1670127871170322432?s=46&t=0dqDdxigZeccg_TvNxhfAA

Möglicherweise waren Push-Backs der Küstenwache Schuld am Bootsunglück in Griechenland

https://www1.wdr.de/radio/wdr5/sendungen/europamagazin/Fluechtlingsboot-104~_v-gseapremiumxl.jpg

Es gibt Vorwürfe, dass das Boot mit Geflüchteten vor Griechenland wegen Push-Backs der griechischen Küstenwache gesunken ist. WDR-Journalist Bamdad Esmaili berichtet im Interview, was Überlebende des Unglücks erzählen.

Nach dem Bootsunglück vor Griechenland mit hunderten Toten gibt es schwere Vorwürfe gegen die griechische Küstenwache, das Unglück verursacht zu haben. Die Rede ist von so genannten Push-Backs. Darunter versteht man Maßnahmen, mit denen flüchtende Menschen daran gehindert werden, die Grenze zu übertreten und einen Asylantrag zu stellen. In der EU-Grundrechte-Charta wird das Recht auf Asyl gemäß der Genfer Flüchtlingskonvention allerdings garantiert.

Die Küstenwache weist den Vorwurf von Push-Backs zurück - jetzt soll die europäische Polizeibehörde Europol ermitteln. WDR-Journalist Bamdad Esmaili ist in Griechenland und hat mit seinem Team mit Überlebenden sprechen können.

WDR: Es gibt Vorwürfe gegen die griechische Küstenwache. Worum geht es da?

Bamdad Esmaili: Es geht darum, dass es Vorwürfe gibt, dass die griechische Küstenwache dieses Boot in die Richtung von italienischem Gewässer gezogen hat - dass sie es sozusagen gepushbackt hat. Diesen Vorwurf hatten wir bislang nur gehört, gestern Abend gelang es meinem Kollegen, der arabisch spricht, dann mit ungefähr zehn überlebenden Geflüchteten zu sprechen. Sie haben unabhängig voneinander berichtet, dass dieses Boot tatsächlich gezogen wurde - nicht nur einmal, nicht nur zweimal, sondern insgesamt dreimal. Und dabei ist das Schiff dann ins Wanken gekommen und ist gesunken.

WDR: Das heißt, das Ziehen dieses Bootes, der Versuch es nach Italien zu ziehen und damit aus der Zuständigkeit Griechenlands herauszuholen, ist für dieses Unglück - so scheint es zumindest im Moment - verantwortlich?

Esmaili: Das ist der Vorwurf, der im Raum steht. Das muss natürlich erstmal bewiesen werden. Die Griechen lehnen das vehement ab und dementieren das. Sie sagen nach wie vor immer noch, dass sie Hilfe angeboten haben und das Schiff habe diese Hilfe nicht gewollt, weil sie demnach nach Italien wollten.

WDR: Wir können davon ausgehen, dass es jetzt eine größere Untersuchung geben wird. Wie wird in Griechenland darüber diskutiert, was hören Sie da?

Esmaili: Das ist zum Politikum geworden, weil nächste Woche Parlamentswahlen in Griechenland sind. Vor allem die Opposition nutzt dieses Thema jetzt aus und kritisiert die Regierung. Und es ist für drei Tage eine Staatstrauer angeordnet worden. Es gibt auch Proteste, Kundgebungen, es gab einen Trauermarsch in Athen, also das ist ein Riesenthema hier in Griechenland.

WDR: Sie haben erwähnt, dass Sie mit Überlebenden sprechen konnten. Wie haben diese denn die Situation auf dem Schiff beschrieben? Abgesehen von der Frage, ob sie gezogen wurden und damit das Unglück ausgelöst wurde.

Esmaili: Man muss sich das so vorstellen: Ein Schiff, das 30 Meter lang ist, war völlig überfüllt. Die Überlebenden erzählen uns, dass sie von den Schleppern gehört haben, dass 747 Personen auf diesem Schiff waren. Deswegen ist auch immer von knapp 750 Personen die Rede und die waren überall: Unten, oben auf dem Deck, seit Tagen unterwegs, ohne Nahrung, ohne Wasser. Da kann man sich vorstellen, wie die Stimmung auf dem Schiff war.

WDR: Das heißt, man muss davon ausgehen, dass das Unglück zu hunderten Toten geführt hat. Was geschieht jetzt mit den Menschen, die gerettet wurden - auch mit denen, mit denen Sie gesprochen haben?

Esmaili: Wir sind jetzt in Malakasa in der Nähe von Athen und dort sind 71 Personen untergebracht, die kommen ganz normal ins Asylverfahren. Knapp 30 Personen sind noch in Kalamata im Krankenhaus, die werden behandelt und dann kommen sie vermutlich auch ins ganz normale Asylverfahren.

WDR: Ganz normale Asylverfahren nach dem, was sie erlebt haben, das ist sicherlich auch eine schwierige Situation. Wurde die Suche nach Überlebenden denn inzwischen eingestellt?

Esmaili: Das kann ich so nicht bestätigen. Wir haben gestern Abend noch gehört, dass noch weiter gesucht wird, aber natürlich kann man nach so vielen Tagen und bei so vielen Menschen davon ausgehen, dass man kaum noch Überlebende aus dem Meer retten kann. Rund 100 Kinder sollen auch mit an Bord gewesen sein.

▻https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/bootsunglueck-mittelmeer-interview-bamdad-esmaili-100.html

Nella stiva.

▻https://i.imgur.com/E8A8fxO.png

#Mauro_Biani #dessin_de_presse #caricature

Frontex statement following tragic shipwreck off Pylos

We are shocked and saddened by the tragic events that unfolded off the coast of Greece. The Frontex Executive Director, who travelled to Greece after learning about the tragedy, has offered any support the authorities may need.

People smugglers have once again trifled with human lives by forcing several hundred migrants on a fishing boat not designed to fit such a number of people. Many were trapped underneath the deck. Our thoughts go out to the families of the victims.

On 13 June before noon, a Frontex plane spotted the fishing vessel inside the Greek search and rescue region in international waters. The ship was heavily overcrowded and was navigating at slow speed (6 knots) direction north-east.

Frontex immediately informed the Greek and Italian authorities about the sighting, providing them with information about the condition of the vessel, speed and photos.

The plane kept monitoring the vessel, constantly providing updates to all relevant national authorities until it ran out of fuel and had to return to base.

As a Frontex drone was to patrol the Aegean on the same day, the agency offered to provide additional assistance ahead of the planned and scheduled flight. The Greek authorities asked the agency to send the drone to another search and rescue incident south off Crete with 80 people in danger.

The drone, after attending to the incident south off Crete, flew to the last known position of the fishing vessel. The drone arrived at the scene four hours later at 04:05 (UTC) in the morning, when a large-scale search and rescue operation by Greek authorities was ongoing and there was no sign of the fishing boat. No Frontex plane or boat was present at the time of the tragedy.

▻https://frontex.europa.eu/media-centre/news/news-release/frontex-statement-following-tragic-shipwreck-off-pylos-dJ5l9p

–-
Commentaire de Lena K. sur twitter :

This might be important. According to Frontex, they offered a drone to fly over the location of the Pylos shipwreck in the evening of 13th, but the Greek authorities decided to send it to another distress incident south of Crete. Convenient (for both).

▻https://twitter.com/lk2015r/status/1670143075040088068

Naufrage en Grèce : le bateau dérivait, contrairement à la version des garde-côtes

Que s’est-il passé dans les heures précédant le terrible naufrage au large du Péloponnèse ? Les garde-côtes grecs affirment que le chalutier bondé faisait route vers l’Italie à une vitesse régulière et n’avait pas besoin d’être secouru. Une enquête de la BBC affirme le contraire : le chalutier était à l’arrêt et nécessitait une aide urgente.

Version contre version. Depuis le terrible naufrage du mercredi 13 juin au large de la Grèce, qui a coûté la vie à au moins 500 personnes (▻https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/49759/au-moins-200-pakistanais-parmi-les-victimes-du-naufrage-en-grece), les autorités grecques campent sur leurs positions : le chalutier, qui comptait au moins 700 exilés à bord, n’était pas en danger imminent. Du moins, pas dans les heures précédant le naufrage.

Selon le communiqué officiel du Premier ministre grec (▻https://www.primeminister.gr/2023/06/14/32002), Kyriakos Mitsotakis, le bateau, parti de Tobrouk en Libye, naviguait en direction de l’Italie. « À 15h35, le navire de pêche a été repéré par l’hélicoptère de la Garde côtière [grecque] naviguant à vitesse régulière », peut-on lire sur le communiqué. Il avait été repéré pour la première fois vers 11h du matin, et depuis, les autorités grecques le surveillait à distance. Pourquoi ne pas le secourir immédiatement ? Parce qu’il ne semblait pas en difficulté, se défendent les Grecs. « Le navire navigu[ait] avec un cap et une vitesse constantes », écrivent-ils dans leur rapport.

Cette ligne de défense sera la même tout au long de la journée. À partir de 15h30 jusqu’à 21h, les autorités helléniques affirment avoir été à de nombreuses reprises en communication avec le bateau via téléphone satellite. À chaque fois, les garde-côtes notent que le chalutier navigue à vitesse régulière. Et que les exilés ne réclament aucune aide. « Les migrants criaient : ’Pas d’aide, on va en Italie’ », expliquait déjà vendredi 16 juin le porte-parole des garde-côtes grecs, Nikos Alexiou.

Dans un autre communiqué publié le 19 juin (▻https://www.hcg.gr/el/drasthriothtes/dieykriniseis-anaforika-me-eyreia-epixeirhsh-ereynas-kai-diaswshs-allodapwn-se-d), Athènes maintient sa position et affirme que le bateau a parcouru une distance de 24 nautiques marins - soit 44 km - depuis le moment où il a été repéré jusqu’à son naufrage.

« Le navire ne bouge pas »

Seulement, l’enquête menée par la BBC (►https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65942426) contredit la version grecque. Grâce aux coordonnées GPS des autres navires présents dans la zone méditerranéenne, la BBC est arrivée à la conclusion que le bateau n’a pas bougé entre 18h et 21h, mardi 13 juin. Un premier chalutier – le Lucky sailor – s’en est approché, sur ordre des garde-côtes grecs, à 18h pour lui fournir des vivres et de l’eau. Trois heures plus tard, c’est au même point de coordonnées maritimes qu’un second navire – le Faithfull Warrior - s’est rendu pour un autre ravitaillement.

Et la BBC de continuer. « Une vidéo – qui aurait été tournée depuis le Faithful Warrior – prétend montrer des vivres livrés au navire via une corde dans l’eau. La BBC a vérifié ces images et a découvert que le navire - qui ne bouge pas – correspond à la forme du navire de migrants en détresse. Les conditions météorologiques correspondent à celles signalées à l’époque. »

Pourtant, dans le dernier communiqué du 19 juin, les Grecs ne parlent pas d’immobilisation du navire. « Dans la soirée, le navire de patrouille côtière [...] est arrivé dans la région et a repéré [le chalutier] se déplaçant par ses propres moyens, à faible vitesse », maintiennent-ils.

Et d’insister. Lors des deux ravitaillements, le navire a dans un premier temps poursuivi sa route avant de finalement s’arrêter. « Une fois le processus [de ravitaillement] terminé, les occupants du bateau ont commencé à jeter les fournitures à la mer », notent-ils encore dans leur document.

« Navire secoué par le vent et les vagues »

Enfin, à 22h40, les garde-côtes affirment s’être approché du chalutier tout en restant « à distance ». Là encore, ils ne détectent aucun problème de navigation. Et proposent de l’aide au navire en difficulté. « [Le chalutier] s’est de nouveau arrêté quelques minutes à l’approche [de la garde-côtière] puis a continué son chemin ».

Entre le dernier ravitaillement et l’immobilisation du chalutier - à cause d’une panne mécanique -, une distance d’environ 6 mille nautiques (11 km) a été parcouru. À aucun moment, selon Athènes, le navire n’a donc été immobile.

À l’échelle de la Méditerranée, ces dizaines de mille nautiques parcourus par le chalutier ne signifie pas qu’il naviguait de plein gré, insiste la BBC. Mais plutôt qu’il se déplaçait à peine « ce que l’on peut attendre d’un navire en détresse secoué par le vent et les vagues dans la partie la plus profonde de la mer Méditerranée », explique la BBC. Selon le média, les garde-côtes auraient donc dû procéder au sauvetage.

Vers 2h du matin, dans la nuit du mardi à mercredi, le bateau fera naufrage. Le bilan provisoire fait toujours état de 78 morts, et des centaines de disparus.

▻https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/49764/naufrage-en-grece--le-bateau-derivait-contrairement-a-la-version-des-g

Il video di Frontex e quel barcone stracarico in balia del mare

Nel video di Frontex il barcone stracarico di migranti in navigazione tra la Libia, da dove era partito quattro giorni prima, e l’Europa. Le immagini sono state registrate il 13 giugno alle ore 9.48 Utc. Il naufragio è avvenuto la notte tra il 13 e il 14 giugno.

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Drz5OVIkWi0&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fw

Salgono a 80 le vittime accertate del tragico naufragio avvenuto a sud del Peloponneso, in Grecia, la settimana scorsa. I soccorsi hanno recuperato i corpi di altri due uomini a largo di Pylos. Le persone tratte in salvo sono ancora 104, mentre mancano all’appello almeno 600 persone, tra cui 100 bambini che al momento del naufragio si trovavano nella stiva. I corpi sono stati trasportati nel porto di Kalamata. Proseguono intanto le ricerche della Guardia costiera.

Il racconto di un sopravvissuto

«La Guardia costiera greca ci ha detto che ci avrebbe portato in acque italiane, che ci stavano spingendo. Era una nave da guerra. Poi la nostra barca si è ribaltata. Sono finito in mare, urlavo, non hanno fatto nulla per salvarci. Ho cercato di rimanere a galla per mezz’ora poi quando sono arrivate le barche della Guardia costiera mi sono allontanato perchè avevo paura. Ho visto la luce di una nave commerciale in lontananza e l’ho raggiunta». E’ la testimonianza-choc che sta circolando in queste ore su twitter. Si Tratta di un sopravvissuto siriano che racconta cosa è successo quella notte, fra martedì e mercoledì di una settimana fa, quando il barcone, partito dalla Libia, si è inabissando portandosi dietro almeno 600 persone (fra cui 100 bambini).

La ricostruzione della Guardia costiera greca
«In totale, il peschereccio ha percorso una distanza di circa 30 miglia nautiche dal momento del rilevamento al momento dell’affondamento» ha dichiarato la Guardia costiera greca in un comunicato. «Il chiarimento», precisa la nota, arriva a seguito delle «pubblicazioni della stampa internazionale e nazionale» secondo cui il peschereccio sovraffollato non si è mosso per almeno 7 ore prima di capovolgersi. «Nelle ore pomeridiane» di martedì 13 giugno, l’imbarcazione dei migranti «è stata avvicinata da una nave cisterna per fornire assistenza», continua il comunicato della Guardia costiera costiera sul naufragio del peschereccio a largo di Pylos. Nel testo si specifica nuovamente che i migranti a bordo avevano fatto resistenza e che poi il peschereccio si è fermato ed «è iniziato il rifornimento di viveri». Dalle ricostruzioni delle autorità elleniche si legge anche che una seconda nave cisterna si è impegnata ad avvicinarsi all’imbarcazione dei migranti per fornire provviste, ma il peschereccio avrebbe fatto resistenza e si sarebbe spostato verso ovest. Alla fine, la nave cisterna ha iniziato la procedura di rifornimento ma al termine di questa i migranti «hanno iniziato a gettare le provviste in mare». «L’intero processo di rifornimento di provviste agli occupanti del peschereccio da parte delle due navi commerciali è durato in totale più di quattro ore e trenta minuti», aggiunge la Guardia costiera, specificando che «nelle ore serali» è arrivata nella zona una loro motovedetta e «ha avvistato il peschereccio che si muoveva autonomamente, a bassa velocità». Secondo la ricostruzione delle autorità elleniche, la motovedetta «ha avviato una procedura di avvicinamento all’imbarcazione per accertarsi delle condizioni attuali del natante e dei suoi occupanti», mentre «la nave si è fermata di nuovo per alcuni minuti durante l’avvicinamento da parte della motovedetta e poi ha continuato la sua rotta».
«Dal momento in cui è stato completato il processo di rifornimento fino all’immobilizzazione del peschereccio a causa di un guasto meccanico, il peschereccio ha percorso una distanza di circa 6 miglia nautiche» conclude la Guardia costiera greca.

Islamabad: 300 cittadini pachistani annegati a Pylos
Più di 300 pachistani sono annegati nel naufragio del peschereccio al largo delle coste greche del Peloponneso: il numero delle vittime è stato reso noto dal presidente del Senato di Islamabad Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani inviando le condoglianze alle famiglie. Lo scrive la Cnn. «I nostri pensieri e le nostre preghiere sono con voi e preghiamo che le anime defunte trovino la pace eterna», ha detto Sanjrani. «Questo devastante incidente sottolinea l’urgenza di affrontare e condannare l’esecrabile traffico illegale di esseri umani». Le autorità greche non hanno ancora confermato il bilancio delle vittime pakistane.

▻https://www.avvenire.it/attualita/pagine/naufragio-in-grecia-la-versione-dei-greci

A survivor of #Pylos shipwreck shared harrowing details:

➡️Two people died from thirst and hunger on the 4th and 5th days of the journey
➡️On the 4th day, people started drinking from the boat engine’s water. On the 5th day, a state of “slow death” was announced

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fy-oJJ1WcAEuCvZ?format=png&name=small#.jpg

➡️On 16 June, they started calling for any coastguard as they didn’t know they were in the Greek waters.
➡️A luxury yacht provided 4 boxes of water for almost 750 people & this created tension between people due to thirst.

➡️A giant Greek ship threw ropes to people & towed the boat. Then, they started throwing water bottles at them leading to an imbalance in the boat
➡️The boat started sinking. We started to beg to be rescued and showed them the dead bodies but the ship wasn’t qualified for rescue

➡️Around sunset, a Greek military ship with masked people wearing black approached, towed them with only one blue robe & increased their ship’s speed
➡️That was when the ship capsized. People started shouting as they sink. People on the Greek military ship were just watching
Full testimony here:
►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOzLIXa1cQ8

▻https://twitter.com/ecre/status/1670739249417560064

I superstiti del naufragio di Pylos accusano la Guardia costiera greca

Nella notte tra il 13 e il 14 giugno le autorità greche avrebbero tentato di trainare il peschereccio partito dalla Libia con a bordo oltre 700 persone, provocandone l’inabissamento. Le testimonianze dei sopravvissuti, confinati subito dopo aver toccato terra, smontano la versione di Atene. Le vittime sarebbero almeno 643

https://i0.wp.com/altreconomia.it/app/uploads/2023/06/Frontex-Pylos.png?resize=770%2C500&ssl=1#.jpg

Secondo diverse testimonianze dei sopravvissuti il peschereccio con oltre 700 persone a bordo è affondato al largo delle coste greche, nelle prime ore di mercoledì 21 giugno, durante un tentativo fallito di rimorchio da parte della Guardia costiera greca. L’accusa è contenuta nelle dichiarazioni rilasciate da alcuni naufraghi all’autorità giudiziaria di Kalamata, città meridionale greca –visionate dall’Ap news (▻https://apnews.com/article/greece-migrant-shipwreck-smugglers-9daf86915e8bd89a1697dd1ee75504ac) e dal quotidiano ellenico Kathimerini- che smentiscono la versione delle autorità greche secondo cui la barca non sarebbe stata scortata nelle sue ultime ore di navigazione e non ci sarebbe stato alcun tentativo di abbordarla.

“La nave greca ha gettato una corda ed è stata legata alla nostra prua -ha spiegato Abdul Rahman Alhaz, 24 anni, palestinese che è riuscito a salvarsi-. Dopo hanno iniziato a muoversi e a tirare, per poco più di due minuti. Noi gridavamo ‘Stop, stop’ perché la barca era sovraccarica. Poi ha cominciato a inclinarsi”.

L’inabissamento del peschereccio partito dalla Libia avrebbe provocato almeno 643 vittime, secondo quanto è stato possibile ricostruire dalle testimonianze dei 104 sopravvissuti. Sarebbero 100 i bambini, sempre secondo i racconti di chi si è salvato dal naufragio, che con le donne erano stipati nella stiva della nave. Sulle dinamiche dell’incidente, però, fin da subito erano emersi versioni contrastanti.

Un’inchiesta realizzata dalla BBC (►https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65942426) mostra che il peschereccio sovraffollato non si è mosso per almeno sette ore prima di capovolgersi mentre la guardia costiera, invece, nel comunicato stampa rilasciato successivamente al naufragio sottolinea che dalle 15.30 all’1.40 la navigazione è proseguita a “velocità e rotta costante”. La versione della BBC si basa sui dati di Marin traffic, che traccia i movimenti delle imbarcazioni nel Mediterraneo, e che confermerebbe che le navi inviate dalle autorità greche per fornire supporto all’imbarcazione carica di naufraghi siano intervenute tutte nella stessa zona e che quindi la nave avrebbe percorso “meno di poche miglia nautiche, come ci si può aspettare da una nave colpita dal vento o dalle onde nella parte più profonda del Mar Mediterraneo”. Inoltre, sempre secondo la testata inglese, la foto dell’imbarcazione pubblicata dai guardacoste ellenici giovedì 15 giugno, riferita a poche ore prima del capovolgimento, dimostra che la nave era ferma e soprattutto smentisce la versione secondo cui le stesse autorità “avevano osservato da una distanza discreta il susseguirsi dei fatti”.

“Abbiamo lanciato una richiesta di soccorso il giorno prima del naufragio verso le 8 del mattino -ha raccontato un sopravvissuto alla Ong Consolidated rescue group- (►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOzLIXa1cQ8

). Non sapevamo neanche che fossimo in Grecia”. Alle 9.47 del mattino Frontex, l’Agenzia che sorveglia le frontiere europee, ha comunicato alle autorità italiane e greche la presenza di un peschereccio sovraffollato e la Centrale operativa di Roma intorno alle 11 ha comunicato la posizione della nave, nel Sud del Peloponneso, al centro operativo di Atene. Alle 13.50 da Mitilini si è alzato un elicottero della Guardia costiera greca diretto verso il peschereccio, raggiunto verso le 15.35. Le stesse autorità greche, intanto, stavano chiedendo alle imbarcazioni che navigavano nell’area di cambiare rotta. “Una barca ci ha rifornito di quattro boxes d’acqua da sei bottiglie l’una: le persone si colpivano per prenderla -continua il sopravvissuto-. Questa nave ci ha lanciato una corda per avvicinarci ma ci ha detto che non era loro compito salvarci e che presto sarebbe arrivata la Guardia costiera”. La situazione a bordo era tesa, racconta sempre l’uomo intervistato dal Consolidated rescue group, al quarto giorno di navigazione non c’era né acqua né cibo, due persone erano morte e giacevano sul vascello: al quinto giorno, quello precedente al naufragio, qualcuno beveva dal motore perché l’acqua era finita. Ma anche nel racconto dell’uomo quello che succede al calar del sole di martedì scorso, dopo l’intervento delle navi civili, ripercorre le testimonianze di decine di altri naufraghi. “La Guardia costiera, una volta arrivata, ci ha detto di seguirli così l’Italia ci avrebbe salvato. Lo abbiamo fatto per mezz’ora, poi il motore si è rotto. Erano vestiti di nero e mascherati, senza segni militari. Ci hanno tirati con una corta e poi sono ripartiti, la nave ha perso stabilità e poco dopo è affondata”.

Da Atene le autorità hanno dichiarato che i naufraghi hanno più volte rifiutato il loro intervento perché volevano proseguire verso l’Italia. Diverse testimonianze dei naufraghi smentiscono questa versione. Nawal Soufi, attivista rifugiata indipendente che quel giorno ha lanciato per prima l’Sos per la barca in avaria, ha dichiarato di essere stata in contatto con le persone sulla barca fino alle 23 di martedì. “L’uomo con cui stavo parlando mi ha detto espressamente: ‘Sento che questa sarà la nostra ultima notte viva’”, ha scritto. Poco prima di mezzanotte il motore si è spento.

El Pais (▻https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-20/greece-imposes-silence-around-shipwreck-of-overcrowded-migrant-boat.) ha accusato le autorità greche di “imporre il silenzio” ai sopravvissuti al naufragio. Durante la loro permanenza nel porto di Kalamata, i 104 naufraghi avevano infatti mobilità limitata e scarso accesso alle comunicazioni: la Guardia costiera, secondo quanto ricostruito dal quotidiano spagnolo, li avrebbe confinati all’interno di un complesso recintato da cui non è stato permesso loro di uscire. Successivamente, venerdì 16 giugno, sono stati trasferiti a Malakasa, un campo per richiedenti asilo vicino ad Atene. Ma anche in questa nuova sistemazione la possibilità di uscire e avere contatti con l’esterno è risultata limitata

Intanto martedì 20 giugno il tribunale di Kalamata ha convalidato l’arresto di nove uomini di origine egiziana accusati di essere i membri dell’equipaggio: omicidio colposo, naufragio e partecipazione a un’organizzazione criminale sono i capi d’accusa. L’avvocato Athanassios Iliopoulos, che rappresenta un presunto trafficante di 22 anni, ha dichiarato all’Associated Press che tutti e nove i sospettati hanno negato le accuse in tribunale affermando di essere essi stessi naufraghi. Iliopoulos ha detto che il suo cliente ha riferito di aver venduto il suo camion preso in prestito dai suoi genitori per raccogliere 4.500 euro per il viaggio. Anche in Pakistan, dove è stato proclamato il lutto nazionale per le vittime del naufragio, l’ufficio del primo ministro Shehbaz Sharif ha annunciato che sono state arrestate dieci persone accusate di far parte dell’organizzazione. “Intensificheremo gli sforzi nella lotta contro le persone coinvolte nell’atroce crimine della tratta di esseri umani”, ha dichiarato il capo del governo. Per la presidente della Commissione europea Ursula von der Leyen “è urgente agire”, sottolineando che l’Ue dovrebbe aiutare i Paesi africani come la Tunisia, da cui molte persone partono, a stabilizzare le loro economie. Non ha in questo caso menzionato la Libia, luogo da cui il peschereccio del naufragio è partito.

La Grecia è stata più volte accusata di violare sui propri confini le norme sul salvataggio in mare e i diritti delle persone in transito. A maggio 2023 un’inchiesta del New York Times ha mostrato, con tanto di video ad alta definizione, le autorità greche riportare indietro verso le coste turche decine di profughi già arrivati sul territorio, tra cui anche bambini, lasciando alla deriva l’imbarcazione. Altro che attività di search and rescue. Il portale di inchiesta Solomon (▻https://wearesolomon.com/mag/focus-area/migration/just-007-of-819m-border-budget-to-greece-earmarked-for-search-and-resc) ha ricostruito come degli 819 milioni di euro forniti ad Atene all’interno del “Fondo di gestione delle frontiere europee” appena lo 0,07% (neanche 600mila euro) sarà destinato allo sviluppo delle attività di ricerca e soccorso in mare. La maggior parte del denaro riguarda invece l’approvvigionamento di attrezzature di deterrenza come droni, veicoli di ogni tipo, termocamere, elicotteri e sistemi di sorveglianza automatizzati. Tutto ciò che non è servito per salvare 640 persone.

▻https://altreconomia.it/i-superstiti-del-naufragio-di-pylos-accusano-la-guardia-costiera-greca

Greece shipwreck survivors were ’abandoned for 10 minutes’

Survivors of the June 14 shipwreck off Greece have made serious accusations against the country’s Coast Guard in witness statements.

Statements gathered from some of the 104 survivors of a recent shipwreck off Greece contain serious accusations against the Greek Coast Guard.

Search operations for more corpses continue after the fishing vessel, which is believed to have been carrying up to 800 migrants, capsized last week south of Greece’s Peloponnese.
Survivors blame Greek Coast Guard

“When the ship capsized, the Coast Guard cut the rope and continued on its way. It went farther away as we were all screaming. After 10 minutes, they came back with small boats to pick up people but they did not go as far as the ship itself. They only picked up those who managed to swim away,” one survivor told the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, recounting the last minutes of shipwreck that left at least 82 dead and hundreds missing.

Surviving witnesses have been questioned by the Kalamata port authority.

Every person interviewed confirmed — with slight variations in their reconstructions — that the shipwreck had been caused by a Greek Coast Guard patrol boat.

One of the survivors said the Coast Guard’s attempt to tow the overcrowded fishing vessel created turbulence in the water that eventually caused the ship to capsize.

“They tried to pull it using force for two or three minutes and everyone whistled to try to make them stop, since they were pulling it strongly and creating waves,” one said.

Another added that, “for the first few minutes we went forward, but then the Coast Guard turned to the right and the ship overturned.”
Polemics inflame political conflict prior to vote

These witness statements run counter to the Coast Guard’s official version. Captains aboard the patrol boat say they only hooked up to the vessel for a few minutes to check the situation onboard before the ship wrecked.

The situation has inflamed political conflict ahead of Greece’s government elections, which will be held Sunday.

▻https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/49846/greece-shipwreck-survivors-were-abandoned-for-10-minutes

They knew the boat could sink. Boarding it didn’t feel like a choice.

The story of how as many as 750 migrants came to board a rickety blue fishing trawler and end up in one of the Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwrecks is bigger than any one of the victims. But for everyone, it started somewhere, and for #Thaer_Khalid_al-Rahal it started with cancer.

The leukemia diagnosis for his youngest son, 4-year-old Khalid, came early last year. The family had been living in a Jordanian refugee camp for a decade, waiting for official resettlement after fleeing Syria’s bitter war, and doctors said the United Nations’ refugee agency could help cover treatment costs. But agency funds dwindled and the child’s case worsened. When doctors said Khalid needed a bone-marrow transplant, the father confided in relatives that waiting to relocate through official channels was no longer an option. He needed to get to Europe to earn money and save his son.

“Thaer thought he didn’t have a choice,” said his cousin, Abdulrahman Yousif al-Rahal, reached by phone in the Jordanian refugee camp of Zaatari.

In Egypt, the journey for #Mohamed_Abdelnasser, 27, started with a creeping realization that his carpentry work could not earn enough to support his wife and two sons.

For #Matloob_Hussain, 42, it began the day his Greek residency renewal was rejected, sending him back to Pakistan, where his salary helped put food on the table for 20 extended family members amid a crippling economic crisis.

“Europe doesn’t understand,” said his brother Adiil Hussain, interviewed in Greece where they had lived together. “We don’t leave because we want to. There is simply nothing for us in Pakistan.”

On Matloob’s earlier journey to Europe, he had been so scared of the water that he kept his eyes closed the whole time. This time, the smugglers promised him they would take him to Italy. They said they would use “a good boat.”

The trawler left from the Libyan port city of #Tobruk on June 8. Just 104 survivors have reached the Greek mainland. Eighty-two bodies have been recovered, and hundreds more have been swallowed by the sea.

As the Mediterranean became a stage for tragedy on June 14, a billionaire and several businessmen were preparing for their own voyage in the North Atlantic. The disappearance of their submersible as it dove toward the wreckage of the Titanic sparked a no-expenses-spared search-and-rescue mission and rolling headlines. The ship packed with refugees and migrants did not.

About half the passengers are believed to have been from Pakistan. The country’s interior minister said Friday that an estimated 350 Pakistanis were on board, and that many may have died. Of the survivors from the boat, 47 are Syrian, 43 Egyptian, 12 Pakistani and two Palestinian.

Some of the people on the trawler were escaping war. Many were family breadwinners, putting their own lives on the line to help others back home. Some were children. A list of the missing from two towns in the Nile Delta carries 43 names. Almost half of them are under 18 years old.

This account of what pushed them to risk a notoriously dangerous crossing is based on interviews with survivors in Greece and relatives of the dead in Pakistan, Jordan and Egypt, as the news sent ripples of distress throughout communities from North Africa to South Asia. Some people spoke on the condition of anonymity, because they feared being drawn into government crackdowns on human smuggling networks.

Rahal’s family said they do not know how he contacted the smugglers in Libya, but remember watching as he creased under the fatigue and shame of having to ask anyone he could for the thousands of dollars they were requesting for safe passage to Italy.

Thirteen men left from El Na’amna village, south of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, in the hope of achieving the same. Ten miles away in Ibrash, another village, Abdelnasser left the house as he usually did for his 2 a.m. factory shift but joined a packed car to Libya instead, along with 29 other young men and boys. “He told us nothing,” said his father, Amr. “We would have stopped him.”

Many of the families said the departures caught them by surprise and that local intermediaries working for the smugglers later communicated with relatives in Egypt to gather the requested funds.

In El Na’amna, several people said the figure was $4,500 per person — a sum impossibly high for most rural Egyptians. In Ibrash, Abdelnasser’s uncle said, two of the delegates who arrived to collect the money were disguised in women’s dress. Another woman did the talking. She collected the money, photographed receipts, and then told the family that the deal was done.

‘He said the boat was very bad’

The time spent waiting in Libya was harder than the migrants expected, said family members who spoke with them throughout that period. The port city of Tobruk had become a transit hub for people, and the migrants reported that the smugglers treated them like goods to be traded. The lucky ones rented cramped apartments where they could wait near the bright blue sea.

Travelers who had arranged to meet their intermediaries in the city of Benghazi were transported in large refrigerator trucks to the desert. One survivor described a house there “with a big yard and big walls and people at the door with guns.” It was so busy that people slept in the yard outside. Inside, a 24-year-old Pakistani migrant, Bilal Hassan, tried to lighten the mood by reciting Punjabi poetry. He is smiling in the video he sent his family, but other men in the room look tense.

Some migrants told their families they were getting anxious and didn’t trust their smugglers. Others sent brief messages to reassure and say that they were fine.

Rahal spoke to his wife, Nermin, every day. A month passed with no news of onward passage and his mood darkened. He worried about Khalid. In Jordan, the boy kept asking when he would see his father again. “I don’t know,” Rahal texted in reply. When one smuggler’s offer fell through, he found another who promised to get the job done faster. In voice messages to his cousin, he sounded tired.

“I’ll manage to get the money,” he said.

His last call to his wife was June 8. Men from the smuggling network were yelling at the migrants to pack together as closely as possible in rubber dinghies that would take them to the trawler. Up ahead, the blue fishing boat looked like it was already full.

Matloob Hussein, the Pakistani who had lived in Greece, called his brother from the trawler. “He said the boat was very bad,” Adiil recounted. “He said they had loaded people on the boat like cattle. He said he was below deck and that he preferred it so he didn’t have to see that he was surrounded by water.”

When Adiil asked why his brother hadn’t refused to board, Matloob said the smugglers had guns and knives. As the boat pulled out of Tobruk’s concrete port, he told Adiil he was turning his phone off — he did not expect to have a signal again until they arrived.

After the calls to loved ones stopped, from the foothills of Kashmir to the villages of the Nile Delta, families held their breath.

It felt, said one relative, like a film that had just stopped halfway through.

In hometowns and villages, waiting for news

News of the blue trawler’s capsize trickled out on the morning of June 14. The coast guard’s initial report said that at least 17 people had drowned while noting that more than 100 had been saved. On the Greek mainland, relatives waited for updates in the baking sun outside a migrant reception center. Back in hometowns and villages, some people kept their cellphones plugged into the power sockets so they did not risk missing a call.

The residents of El Na’amna and Ibrash didn’t know what to do. Police arrested a local smuggler but provided no updates on the whereabouts of the missing. Rumors swirled that most were dead. The mother of 23-year-old Amr Elsayed described a grief so full that she felt as if she were burning.

A Pakistani community leader in Greece, Javed Aslam, said he was in direct contact with more than 200 families asking for news. Accounts from survivors suggested that almost all the Pakistani passengers, along with many women and children, had been stuck on the lower levels of the boat as it went down.

Adiil came looking for his brother. He was turned away from the hospital where survivors had been treated, but left his details anyway. Outside the Malakasa reception center, where the survivors were staying, 15 miles north of Athens, several Pakistanis seemed to know Matloob as “the man in the yellow T-shirt.” No one had seen him since the wreck.

Perhaps it was crazy, Adiil said Thursday, but somehow he still had hope. He had registered his DNA with the local authorities and he had spoken to other families there every day. Now he didn’t know what to do with himself. His eyes were red from crying. He carried creased photographs of his brother in his pocket.

In one image, Matloob is standing with his dark-eyed daughter, 10-year-old Arfa. Adiil had told the girl that her father was in the hospital, but that fiction was weighing more on him by the day as she kept asking why they couldn’t speak.

Khalid had been asking for his father, too, but no one knew how to make a 4-year-old understand something they barely understood themselves.

Nermin, relatives said, was “in bad shape.” She had a funeral to organize without a body. But first she had to take Khalid to the hospital for his biopsy, to learn how far the cancer had spread.

▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/24/greek-migrant-boat-victims

‘If they had left us be, we wouldn’t have drowned:’ CNN investigation raises questions about Greek coast guard’s account of shipwreck tragedy

The hull of the fishing trawler lifted out of the water as it sank, catapulting people from the top deck into the black sea below. In the darkness, they grabbed onto whatever they could to stay afloat, pushing each other underwater in a frantic fight for survival. Some were screaming, many began to recite their final prayers.

“I can still hear the voice of a woman calling out for help,” one survivor of the migrant boat disaster off the coast of Greece told CNN. “You’d swim and move floating bodies out of your way.”

With hundreds of people still missing after the overloaded vessel capsized in the Mediterranean on June 14, the testimonies of those who were onboard paint a picture of chaos and desperation. They also call into question the Greek coast guard’s version of events, suggesting more lives could have been saved, and may even point to fault on the part of Greek authorities.

Rights groups allege the tragedy is both further evidence and a result of a new pattern in illegal pushbacks of migrant boats to other nations’ waters, with deadly consequences.

This boat was carrying up to 750 Pakistani, Syrian, Egyptian and Palestinian refugees and migrants. Only 104 people have been rescued alive.

CNN has interviewed multiple survivors of the shipwreck and their relatives, all of whom have wished to remain anonymous for security reasons and the fear of retribution from authorities in both Greece and at home.

One survivor from Syria, whom CNN is identifying as Rami, described how a Greek coast guard vessel approached the trawler multiple times to try to attach a rope to tow the ship, with disastrous results.

“The third time they towed us, the boat swayed to the right and everyone was screaming, people began falling into the sea, and the boat capsized and no one saw anyone anymore,” he said. “Brothers were separated, cousins were separated.”

Another Syrian man, identified as Mostafa, also believes it was the maneuver by the coast guard that caused the disaster. “The Greek captain pulled us too fast, it was extremely fast, this caused our boat to sink,” he said.

The Hellenic Coast Guard has repeatedly denied attempting to tow the vessel. An official investigation into the cause of the tragedy is still ongoing.

Coast guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou told CNN over the phone last week: “When the boat capsized, we were not even next to (the) boat. How could we be towing it?” Instead, he insisted they had only been “observing at a close distance” and that “a shift in weight probably caused by panic” had caused the boat to tip.

The Hellenic Coast Guard has declined to answer CNN’s specific requests for response to the survivor testimonies.

Direct accounts from those who survived the wreck have been limited, due to their concerns about speaking out and the media having little access to the survivors. CNN interviewed Rami and Mostafa outside the Malakasa migrant camp near Athens, where journalists are not permitted entry.

The Syrian men said the conditions on board the migrant boat deteriorated fast in the more than five days after it set off from Tobruk, Libya, in route to Italy. They had run out of water and had resorted to drinking from storage bottles that people had urinated in.

“People were dying. People were fainting. We used a rope to dip clothes into the sea and use that to squeeze water on people who had lost consciousness,” Rami said.

CNN’s analysis of marine traffic data, combined with information from NGOs, merchant vessels and the European Union border patrol agency, Frontex, suggests that Greek authorities were aware of the distressed vessel for at least 13 hours before it eventually sank early on June 14.

The Greek coast guard has maintained that people onboard the trawler had refused rescue and insisted they wanted to continue their journey to Italy. But survivors, relatives and activists say they had asked for help multiple times.

Earlier in the day, other ships tried to help the trawler. Directed by the Greek coast guard, two merchant vessels – Lucky Sailor and Faithful Warrior – approached the boat between 6 and 9 p.m. on June 13 to offer supplies, according to marine traffic data and the logs of those ships. But according to survivors this only caused more havoc onboard.

“Fights broke out over food and water, people were screaming and shouting,” Mostafa said. “If it wasn’t for people trying to calm the situation down, the boat was on the verge of sinking several times.”

By early evening, six people had already died onboard, according to an audio recording reviewed by CNN from Italian activist Nawal Soufi, who took a distress call from the migrant boat at around 7 p.m. Soufi’s communication with the vessel also corroborated Mostafa’s account that people moved from one side of the boat to the other after water bottles were passed from the cargo ships, causing it to sway dangerously.

The haunting final words sent from the migrant boat came just minutes before it capsized. According to a timeline published by NGO Alarm Phone they received a call, at around 1:45 a.m., with the words “Hello my friend… The ship you send is…” Then the call cuts out.

The coast guard says the vessel began to sink at around 2 a.m.

The next known activity in the area, according to marine traffic data, was the arrival of a cluster of vessels starting around 3 a.m. The Mayan Queen superyacht was the first on the scene for what soon became a mass rescue operation.

A responsibility to rescue

Human rights groups say the authorities had a duty to act to save lives, regardless of what people on board were saying to the coast guard before the migrant boat capsized.

“The boat was overcrowded, was unseaworthy and should have been rescued and people taken to safety, that’s quite clear,” UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Vincent Cochetel told CNN in an interview. “There was a responsibility for the Greek authorities to coordinate a rescue to bring those people safely to land.”

Cochetel also pointed to a growing trend by countries, including Greece, to assist migrant boats in leaving their waters. “That’s a practice we’ve seen in recent months. Some coastal states provide food, provide water, sometimes life jackets, sometimes even fuel to allow such boats to continue to only one destination: Italy. And that’s not fair, Italy cannot cope with that responsibility alone.”

Survivors who say the coast guard tried to tow their boat say they don’t know what the aim was.

There have been multiple documented examples in recent years of Greek patrol boats engaging in so-called “pushbacks” of migrant vessels from Greek waters in recent years, including in a CNN investigation in 2020.

“It looks like what the Greeks have been doing since March 2020 as a matter of policy, which is pushbacks and trying to tow a boat to another country’s water in order to avoid the legal responsibility to rescue,” Omer Shatz, legal director of NGO Front-LEX, told CNN. “Because rescue means disembarkation and disembarkation means processing of asylum requests.”

Pushbacks are state measures aimed at forcing refugees and migrants out of their territory, while impeding access to legal and procedural frameworks, according to the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). They are a violation of international law, as well as European regulations.

And such measures do not appear to have deterred human traffickers whose businesses prey on vulnerable and desperate migrants.

In an interview with CNN last month, then Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis denied that his country engaged in intentional pushbacks and described them as a “completely unacceptable practice.” Mitsotakis is widely expected to win a second term in office in Sunday’s election, after failing to get an outright majority in a vote last month.

A series of Greek governments have been criticized for their handling of migration policy, including conditions in migrant camps, particularly following the 2015-16 refugee crisis, when more than 1 million people entered Europe through the country.

For those who lived through last week’s sinking, the harrowing experience will never be forgotten.

Mostafa and Rami both say they wish they had never made the journey, despite the fact they are now in Europe and are able to claim asylum.

Most of all, Mostafa says, he wishes the Greek coast guard had never approached their boat: “If they had left us be, we wouldn’t have drowned.”

▻https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/23/europe/greece-migrant-boat-disaster-investigation-intl-cmd/index.html
#témoignage

Greece shipwreck survivors faced ’unacceptable’ conditions on arrival in country

NGOs say survivors of sinking are being held in a closed centre with limited access to psychological support

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Survivors of the Pylos shipwreck, which has left an estimated 500 people missing, faced an “unacceptable” reception in Greece and continue to be held in conditions unsuitable for vulnerable people, NGO workers say.

The overloaded fishing trawler carrying an estimated 750 people capsized and sank in front of the Greek coastguard last week, following an allegedly botched attempt by the coastguard to tow the vessel.

The survivors, put at 104 and all men - as no women or children are said to have survived the wreck - were taken to Kalamata, a city on the Peloponnese peninsula, where they were kept in a storage warehouse for two to three days before being transferred to an asylum registration facility at Malakasa, north of Athens.

“We witnessed an unacceptable reception of extremely vulnerable people in Kalamata,” Eleni Spathanaa, a volunteer lawyer for Refugee Support Aegean, an organisation providing legal advice for the survivors of the wreck, told Middle East Eye.

Survivors slept on mattresses on the warehouse floor, and the area around it was ringed with fencing. A video posted on Twitter showed a Syrian teenager attempting to embrace his brother through the bars.

According to Spathanaa, in the first few days no concerted effort was made by authorities to facilitate contact with the survivors’ families, although the Greek Red Cross was providing some access to mobile phones.

A suffocating experience

The survivors were transported to a registration facility in Malakasa on 16 and 17 June.

According to Spathanaa, conditions at #Malakasa are not much of an improvement on those at Kalamata. Survivors are housed in shared shipping containers, and, as at #Kalamata, the facility is ring-fenced, with access severely restricted.

The prison-like conditions came as a shock.

“We witnessed... people devastated [and in] shock. They could not even understand where they were,” said Spathanaa. "I could not understand why they were put in a closed centre. Of course, these conditions are not suitable for people who have just survived a shipwreck.

“These people were [contained], after such a suffocating experience - all of them have lost friends, some of them close relatives... they cannot even conceive what has happened.”

According to Spathanaa, some of the survivors’ basic needs are not being met at the facility, with some reporting that requests for extra clothing to keep warm at night have been refused. Requests for tea, coffee and cigarettes were also reportedly denied.

Spathanaa and her colleagues also found that, despite suffering from acute distress, the survivors were being “fast-tracked” through the process of registration for asylum applications.

“This was quite problematic because most of the people [we met] had not even seen a lawyer before passing through this process,” she said.

Emergency psychological and medical aid at the facility is being provided by the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF). “We saw a lot of distress,” MSF head of mission Sonia Balleron told MEE. “The medical team is clear that [the survivors] are all potentially at risk of PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].”

The team have reported treating chemical burns, injuries from exposure to the sun and sea water, as well as hypo-glycaemic shock (the effect of low blood sugar), due to the people aboard the boat being deprived of food for up to six days.

According to Balleron, many of the survivors are suffering from sleep disorders and night terrors in the wake of the disaster.

“What we hear mostly... is people [recalling] seeing their friends dying in front of their eyes,” said Balleron. “They also talk about not knowing who survived and who died, which is causing a lot of stress. Families are calling a lot to try to understand if their relatives are among the survivors or not.”
A political choice

For Spathanaa, the conditions experienced by the survivors of the wreck on arrival in Kalamata and Malakasa are no accident, but a “political choice”.

At the end of 2022, the ESTIA accommodation scheme, an EU funded housing programme for vulnerable asylum seekers, was terminated. The programme, which was started in 2015, was intended to assist families with children, people with disabilities and survivors of torture with suitable housing and medical care.

When it closed on 16 December, vulnerable asylum seekers were transferred from ESTIA accommodation to remote camps with as little as 24 hours’ notice. Human rights groups warned that the curtailment of the scheme could exacerbate isolation of asylum seekers and “re-traumatise” survivors of violence and torture.

“We have these vulnerable survivors, and we don’t have the option of sheltering them in dignified and suitable conditions,” said Spathanaa. “I don’t think if the shipwreck’s passengers were tourists, that they would treat them like that. They wouldn’t put them in a warehouse.”

This is not lost on the international community. Social media posts in the wake of the disaster have highlighted the discrepancy in the efforts by the Greek coastguard to prevent last week’s wreck with the resources expended on recovering the missing Titan submarine in the Atlantic Ocean.

Widespread protests in Greece over the authorities’ inaction to the disaster have also highlighted the inequities that play out in the waters of the Mediterranean: on 18 June, two cruise ships were greeted at Thessaloniki port with a banner reading: “Tourists enjoy your cruise in Europe’s biggest migrants cemetery.”

▻https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/greece-shipwreck-survivors-unacceptable-conditions-upon-arrival
#emprisonnement #survivants

Enquête par #Lighthouse_Reports:
Drowning in Lies. Greece tries to cover up its own role in the #Pylos shipwreck by tampering with evidence
►https://seenthis.net/messages/1008145

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On the night of June 14, Captain Richard Kirkby is piloting the Mayan Queen IV, a luxury yacht belonging to a Mexican multibillionaire, through the calm, black waters of the Mediterranean when he receives an emergency call. “Ship sinking. Large number of people. Vessels in the vicinity are requested to initiate search and rescue operations.” The crew hears the screams from people drowning before they can see them.

The shipwreck that takes place that night would turn out to be the deadliest in the Mediterranean in many years. Around 750 people are thought to have been on board the fishing boat that went down off the coast of the Peloponnese. When the Mayan Queen IV reaches the site at 2:55 a.m., only the lights of another ship can be seen. They belong to the Greek Coast Guard, vessel LS 920 – according to investigation files that DER SPIEGEL and its partners have acquired.

But the Greeks cannot be reached via radio. So three crew members from the Mayan Queen IV climb into a life boat and start searching for survivors, constantly heading toward the cries for help. They stay as quiet as they can so as not to miss a single voice. Ultimately, they will pull 15 people out of the water.

Early in the morning, the Greek Coast Guard requests permission to bring additional survivors on board. The Greek vessel is too small to safely bring all the survivors to shore. But the Mayan Queen IV – a ship with four decks, tinted windows and a helicopter landing pad – is large enough. At 7:20 a.m., the yacht sets course for Kalamata. On board are 100 of a total of 104 survivors – migrants wrapped in silver emergency blankets cowering where the super-rich are normally sunning themselves.
Survivors if the shipwreck in the port of Kalamata: “Ship sinking. Large number of people.”

Hundreds of refugees don’t survive this night – despite the fact that the Greek Coast Guard arrived at the site several hours before the accident. As early as the morning of the previous day, an Italian agency had sent them a warning and a non-governmental organization had forwarded an SOS from the fishing boat. Even the European Union border control agency Frontex had identified the ship’s plight and offered additional assistance. How can it be that hundreds of migrants died anyway? It is a question that has plagued the Greek Coast Guard for the last two weeks.

The accusations that survivors have leveled at the Greeks are serious: Did the Coast Guard leave the people to their fate for too long? Were they trying to pull the ship into Italian waters – as some testimony seems to indicate? Perhaps to keep hundreds of migrants from landing in Greece?

A team of reporters from DER SPIEGEL joined forces with the nonprofit newsroom Lighthouse Reports, investigative journalism consortium Reporters United, the Spanish newspaper El País, the Syrian investigative reporting outlet Siraj and the German public broadcaster ARD to explore these questions. The reporters interviewed survivors, many of whom had already turned to the aid organization Consolidated Rescue Group. They examined leaked investigative reports, videos and geodata and spoke with sources inside Frontex.

The reporting indicates that, at the very least, the Greek Coast Guard may have made grave errors. Sixteen refugees have accused the Greeks, for example, of causing the fishing boat to capsize, while seven are convinced that Greek rescue attempts were hesitant at best – which would mean they were willing to accept the deaths of hundreds of people. There are also serious doubts about the willingness of Greek authorities to thoroughly investigate the disaster. The leaked investigation reports raise questions as to whether Greek officials may have altered testimony in their favor.

One of those who survived, we’ll call him Manhal Abdulkareem, tells his story in mid-June from the Greek camp Malakasa. He requests that we not use his real name or even describe him out of fear of how the Greek authorities might react. What he has to say does not paint them in a positive light.

The Syrian once worked as a stonemason in Jordan. Last spring, he decided to risk the crossing to Italy. He traveled to Libya and boarded the vessel in the port city of Tobruk on June 9. Abdulkareem is one of hundreds of people who crowded onto the vessel, and he was one of the lucky ones: He was able to buy himself a place on deck. Later, it would save his life.

Other refugees crowded into the boat’s cold storage room. According to survivors, women and children were below decks, many of them from Pakistan. For them, the belly of the ship would turn into a coffin.

Abdulkareem’s account of the initial days onboard the ship is consistent with the stories told by other survivors. He says that they began running out of water on the third of five days onboard, that the motor cut out on several occasions and that the captain seemed to have lost his orientation. The goal of reaching Italy was more distant than ever.

The Greek Coast Guard was also aware of the dire situation onboard the fishing boat. On the morning of June 13, they received the first warning from the Italian Coast Guard. Frontex agents filmed the ship from the air at midday. At 5:13 p.m. local time, the non-governmental organization Alarmphone wrote an email to the Greek authorities. The email noted that there were 750 people on the ship. “They are requesting urgent assistance.”

At the time of the call for help, the fishing vessel was around 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of the Peloponnese. Nevertheless, the Greek Coast Guard sent a ship that was anchored in far-away Crete.

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At least two freighters supplied the fishing vessel with water, but they didn’t take anyone onboard. Abdulkareem and other survivors say that by this point, two passengers on the boat had already died. The Greek Coast Guard ship only arrived at 10:40 p.m.

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There are two versions for what then took place.

Manhal Abdulkareem reports that the Greek Coast Guard escorted their ship for a time, until the fishing boat’s engine again cut out. Then, he says, the Coast Guard attached a rope to the vessel. “We thought they knew what they were doing,” says Abdulkareem.

The Coast Guard, he says, towed the vessel at a rapid speed, first to the right, then the left, and then back to the right – and then it capsized. Fifteen additional survivors tell a similar story. Some believe the behavior of the Coast Guard was accidental. Others think it was intentional.

When the vessel capsized, there were people trapped inside its hull. One survivor says he heard them knocking. Those who were on deck jumped into the water. “People were falling on us,” says one man from Egypt. Some clung to the sinking vessel, while others grabbed in a panic for anything that was floating, including other people.

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“I know how to swim, but that wasn’t enough,” Abdulkareem would later say. He says he had to avoid others so that he wouldn’t be pulled down into the depths. Four survivors say that the Coast Guard put those in the water in even greater danger by maneuvering in such a way that created large waves.

While still in the water, Abdulkareem began searching for his brother, but was unable to find him. As the vessel was sinking, say survivors, the Greek Coast Guard ship pulled back to a distance of hundreds of meters.

Abdulkareem and six others accuse the Greeks of delayed rescue efforts and only launching inflatable dinghies after significant time had passed. Some estimate that several minutes passed before they took any action at all. Others say the delay was fully half an hour. “They could have saved many people,” says a survivor from Syria. Abdulkareem’s brother still hasn’t been found.

The Greek Coast Guard has a competing account for what took place. According to an official log from June 14, their ship reported on the evening prior to the disaster that the refugees were “on a stable course” – a claim that video evidence and tracking data refute. The people on board, according to the official account, rejected assistance because they “wanted nothing more than to continue onward to Italy.” If the Greek Coast Guard is to be believed, the fishing boat capsized shortly after 2 a.m. The first official log provides no cause for the accident.

Later, the Greek government spokesman said that the Coast Guard had attached a rope to the boat. But only to “stabilize” the vessel. By the time of the accident, the rope had already been cast off, the spokesman said, and the fishing vessel had never been towed. The rope, he insists, was not the cause of the shipwreck. In an interview with CNN, a Coast Guard spokesman speculated that panic may have broken out onboard, leading to the boat listing to one side.

There is no proof for either version. But doubts about the Greek account are significant, even within Frontex. At the agency’s headquarters in Warsaw, EU border guards can follow in real time what is taking place on the EU’s external borders. In this case, the agents must have realized early on the danger that the migrants were in.

On two occasions – at 6:35 p.m. and at 9:34 p.m. – they offered to send the airplane back to the ship that the migrants had already seen at midday. It was refueled and ready to take off, according to an internal memo that DER SPIEGEL has obtained. But the Greek Rescue Coordination Center in Piraeus, Frontex says, ignored the offer. The plane remained on the ground.

The only other available aircraft, a Frontex drone, was initially sent to another distress call, according to Frontex. It only arrived at the scene after the fishing vessel had sunk. In Brussels, hardly anyone believes that the rebuff of Frontex was an accident. Many see a pattern: Greek authorities systematically send away Frontex units, says one Brussels official. That happens particularly often, the official says, in situations that later turn out to be controversial.

The mistrust with which Athens now finds itself confronted – even from EU institutions – has a lot to do with previous violations of international law on the Aegean. The Greek Coast Guard has repeatedly towed groups of refugees back into Turkish waters – before then abandoning them on life rafts with no means of propulsion.

Proof for such pushbacks has become so overwhelming that the Frontex fundamental rights officer recently recommended that the organization suspend cooperation with the Greek Coast Guard. The “strongest possible measures” are necessary to ensure that the Greeks once again begin complying with applicable law, reads an internal memo that DER SPIEGEL has obtained. Joint missions can only be resumed once a new basis for trust has been established, the memo continues.

The skepticism has become so great that Frontex has even sent a team to Greece to question survivors itself. Two Frontex officials say that the results of investigations conducted thus far seem to contradict the Greek version of events. One Greek lawyer is even demanding an official state investigation of the Coast Guard for manslaughter through failure to render aid.

Most survivors, though, don’t believe that the Greek state will investigate the role played by its own Coast Guard. The treatment they received in the days following the catastrophe was too poor for such optimism.

Sami Al Yafi, a young Syrian, is one of them. He, too, has asked that his real name not be printed out of fear of the Greek authorities. He accuses the Coast Guard of manipulating his statement. He claims to have clearly testified that the Coast Guard had caused the ship to capsize, but he was unable to find that statement in the transcript of his interview. An additional survivor says that he had a similar experience.

There are also corresponding inconsistencies in the investigation file. In six instances, according to the file, survivors said nothing about a tow rope in their first interview with the Coast Guard – or at least there is no mention of such in the minutes taken by the Coast Guard. Later, in interviews with public prosecutors, they then accused the Coast Guard of causing the capsizing by towing the vessel.

Moreover, the minutes taken by the Greek Coast Guard frequently include the exact same formulations. According to those minutes, four survivors used exactly the same words in describing the events – despite the fact that the interviews were led by different interpreters. In one case, a member of the Coast Guard apparently acted as an interpreter.

When approached for comment, Greek officials said they were unable to comment on the accusations. The accounts, they said, are part of a confidential investigation. They said they were also unable to comment on the actions of the Coast Guard.

Manhal Abdulkareem, the man who lost his brother, isn’t satisfied. “We are a group of 104 survivors,” he says. All of them know, he says, who caused the boat to capsize.

On at least one occasion, Greek officials have been found guilty of accusations similar to those that have now been lodged by Abdulkareem and other survivors. It was left up to the European Court of Human Rights to pass that verdict. Last year, the court found that the Greek Coast Guard in 2014 towed a refugee boat until it capsized. Three women and eight children died in that incident. Then, too, the Coast Guard claimed that panic had broken out onboard the vessel and that the refugees themselves had caused the boat to capsize. It is the exact same story they are currently telling.

▻https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/new-accusations-against-the-greek-coast-guard-we-thought-they-knew-what-they

Everyone Knew the Migrant Ship Was Doomed. No One Helped.

Satellite imagery, sealed court documents and interviews with survivors suggest that hundreds of deaths were preventable.

From air and by sea, using radar, telephone and radio, officials watched and listened for 13 hours as the migrant ship Adriana lost power, then drifted aimlessly off the coast of Greece in a slowly unfolding humanitarian disaster.

As terrified passengers telephoned for help, humanitarian workers assured them that a rescue team was coming. European border officials, watching aerial footage, prepared to witness what was certain to be a heroic operation.

Yet the Adriana capsized and sank in the presence of a single Greek Coast Guard ship last month, killing more than 600 migrants in a maritime tragedy that was shocking even for the world’s deadliest migrant route.

Satellite imagery, sealed court documents, more than 20 interviews with survivors and officials, and a flurry of radio signals transmitted in the final hours suggest that the scale of death was preventable.

Dozens of officials and coast guard crews monitored the ship, yet the Greek government treated the situation like a law enforcement operation, not a rescue. Rather than send a navy hospital ship or rescue specialists, the authorities sent a team that included four masked, armed men from a coast guard special operations unit.

The Greek authorities have repeatedly said that the Adriana was sailing to Italy, and that the migrants did not want to be rescued. But satellite imagery and tracking data obtained by The New York Times show definitively that the Adriana was drifting in a loop for its last six and a half hours. And in sworn testimony, survivors described passengers on the ship’s upper decks calling for help and even trying to jump aboard a commercial tanker that had stopped to provide drinking water.

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On board the Adriana, the roughly 750 passengers descended into violence and desperation. Every movement threatened to capsize the ship. Survivors described beatings and panic as they waited for a rescue that would never come.

The sinking of the Adriana is an extreme example of a longtime standoff in the Mediterranean. Ruthless smugglers in North Africa cram people onto shoddy vessels, and passengers hope that, if things go wrong, they will be taken to safety. But European coast guards often postpone rescues out of fear that helping will embolden smugglers to send more people on ever-flimsier ships. And as European politics have swung to the right, each new arriving ship is a potential political flashpoint.

So even as passengers on the Adriana called for help, the authorities chose to listen to the boat’s captain, a 22-year-old Egyptian man who said he wanted to continue to Italy. Smuggling captains are typically paid only when they reach their destinations.

The Greek Ministry of Maritime Affairs said it would not respond to detailed questions because the shipwreck was under criminal investigation.

Despite many hours of on-and-off surveillance, the only eyewitnesses to the Adriana’s final moments were the survivors and 13 crew members aboard the coast guard ship, known as the 920. A Maritime Ministry spokesman has said that the ship’s night-vision camera was switched off at the time. Court documents show that the coast guard captain gave the authorities a CD-ROM containing video recordings, but the source of the recordings is unclear, and they have not been made public.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece defended the coast guard during comments in Brussels this past week, calling its critics “profoundly unfair.” The sinking has brought rare public criticism from officials in the European Union, which has remained silent as the Greek government has hardened its stance toward migrants.

In Greece, nine Egyptian survivors from the Adriana were arrested and charged with smuggling and causing the shipwreck. In sworn testimonies and interviews, survivors said that many of the nine brutalized and extorted passengers. But interviews with relatives of those accused paint a more complicated picture. At least one of the men charged with being a smuggler had himself paid a full fee of more than $4,000 to be on the ship.

Collectively paying as much as $3.5 million to be smuggled to Italy, migrants crammed into the Adriana in what survivors recalled was a hellish class system: Pakistanis at the bottom; women and children in the middle; and Syrians, Palestinians and Egyptians at the top.

An extra $50 or so could earn someone a spot on the deck. For some, that turned out to be the difference between life and death.

Many of the passengers, at least 350, came from Pakistan, the Pakistani government said. Most were in the lower decks and the ship’s hold. Of them, 12 survived.

The women and young children went down with the ship.
Setting Sail

Kamiran Ahmad, a Syrian teenager, a month shy of his 18th birthday, had arrived in Tobruk, Libya, with hopes for a new life. He had worked with his father, a tailor, after school. His parents sold land to pay smugglers to take him to Italy, praying that he would make it to Germany to study, work and maybe send some money home.
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“We had no choice but to send him by sea,” his father said in an interview.

But as the Adriana set sail at dawn on June 9, Kamiran was worried. His cousin, Roghaayan Adil Ehmed, 24, who went with him, could not swim. And the boat was overcrowded, with nearly twice as many passengers as he had been told.

No life vests were available, so Roghaayan paid $600 to get himself, Kamiran and a friend to an upper deck.

They were part of a group of 11 young men and boys from Kobani, a mainly Kurdish city in Syria devastated by more than decade of war. The group stayed in dingy, rented rooms in Beirut, Lebanon, then flew to Egypt and on to Libya.

The youngest, Waleed Mohammad Qasem, 14, wanted to be a doctor. When he heard that his uncle Mohammad Fawzi Sheikhi was going to Europe, he begged to go. On the flight to Egypt, the two smiled for a selfie.

Haseeb ur-Rehman, 20, a motorcycle mechanic from the Pakistan-administrated Kashmir, felt he had to leave home to help his family survive. Together with three friends, he paid $8,000 and left for Libya.

He was one of the few Pakistanis who managed to snatch a spot on deck.

The journey, if all went well, would take three days.

As early as the second day, survivors recalled, the engine started breaking down.
Lost

By Day 3, food and clean drinking water had run out. Some migrants put dried prunes in seawater, hoping the sweetness would mellow the saltiness. Others paid young men $20 for dirty water.

Unrest spread as it became clear that the captain, who was spending most of his time on a satellite phone, had lost his way.

When Pakistanis pushed toward the upper deck, Egyptian men working with the captain beat them, often with a belt, according to testimony. Those men, some of whom are among the nine arrested in Greece, emerged as enforcers of discipline.

Ahmed Ezzat, 26, from the Nile Delta, was among them. He is accused of smuggling people and causing the shipwreck. In an interview, his brother, Islam Ezzat, said that Ahmed disappeared from their village in mid-May and re-emerged in Libya weeks later. He said a smuggler had sent someone to the family home to collect 140,000 Egyptian pounds, or $4,500, the standard fee for a spot on the Adriana.

Islam said he did not believe Ahmed had been involved in the smuggling because he had paid the fee. He said the family was cooperating with the Egyptian authorities. Ahmed, like the others who have been charged, has pleaded not guilty.
‘They Will Rescue You’

By Day 4, according to testimonies and interviews, six people in the hold of the ship, including at least one child, had died.

The next day, June 13, as the Adriana lurched toward Italy between engine breakdowns, migrants on deck persuaded the captain to send a distress call to the Italian authorities.

The Adriana was in international waters then, and the captain was focused on getting to Italy. Experts who study this migratory route say that captains are typically paid on arrival. That is supported by some survivors who said their fees were held by middlemen, to be paid once they had arrived safely in Italy.

The captain, some survivors recalled, said the Italian authorities would rescue the ship and take people to shore.

Just before 1 p.m., a glimmer of hope appeared in the sky. A plane.

Frontex, the European Union border agency, had been alerted by the Italian authorities that the Adriana was in trouble and rushed to its coordinates. There was no doubt the ship was perilously overloaded, E.U. officials said, and unlikely to make it to any port without help.

Images of the rusty blue fishing boat appeared in the Frontex command center in Warsaw, where two German journalists happened to be touring, a Frontex spokesman said. The Adriana was a chance to showcase the agency’s ability to detect ships in distress and save lives.

Now that Frontex had seen the ship, which was in Greece’s search-and-rescue area of international waters, the Greek authorities would surely rush to help.

Two hours later, a Greek Coast Guard helicopter flew past. Its aerial photographs show the ship’s upper decks crammed with people waving their hands.

Nawal Soufi, an Italian activist, fielded calls from frantic migrants.

“I’m sure that they will rescue you,” she told them. “But be patient. It won’t be immediate.”
Mayday

Around 7 p.m. on June 13, almost seven hours after Frontex spotted the Adriana, the Greek authorities asked two nearby commercial tankers to bring the migrants water, food and diesel to continue their journey, according to video recordings and court documents.

A crucial part of the Greek authorities’ explanation for not rescuing the Adriana is their claim that it was actively sailing toward Italy. When the BBC, using data from neighboring vessels, reported that the Adriana had been practically idle for several hours before it sank, the Greek government noted that the ship had covered 30 nautical miles toward Italy since its detection by Frontex.

But satellite imagery and data from the ship-tracking platform MarineTraffic show that the Adriana was adrift for its final seven hours or so. Radar satellite imagery from the European Space Agency shows that by the time the Greeks summoned the commercial ships, the Adriana had already reached its closest point to Italy.

From then on, it was drifting backward.

The first tanker, the Lucky Sailor, arrived within minutes. The second, the Faithful Warrior, arrived in about two and a half hours. The captain of the Faithful Warrior reported that some passengers had thrown back supplies and screamed that they wanted to continue to Italy. How many people actually rejected help is unclear, but they included the Adriana’s captain and the handful of men who terrorized the passengers, according to survivors’ testimonies and interviews.

Others were placing distress calls. Alarm Phone, a nonprofit group that fields migrant mayday calls, immediately and repeatedly told the Greek authorities, Frontex and the United Nations refugee agency that people on the Adriana were desperate to be rescued. Several passengers testified that they had tried to jump aboard the Faithful Warrior. But the migrants said that the frenzy only destabilized the Adriana, so the Faithful Warrior withdrew.

As night fell, the Faithful Warrior’s captain told the Greek control center that the Adriana was “rocking dangerously.”

Radio transmission records show that, over five hours, the Greek control center transmitted five messages across the Mediterranean using a channel reserved for safety and distress calls.

Henrik Flornaes, a Danish father of two on a yacht far from the area, said he heard two mayday relay signals that night. They provided coordinates near the location of the Adriana, he said.

A mayday relay directs nearby ships to begin a search and rescue.

But the Greek Coast Guard itself mounted no such mission at this point.
An End Foretold

As midnight of June 14 approached, the Greek Coast Guard vessel 920, the only government ship dispatched to the scene, arrived alongside the Adriana.

The presence of the 920 did not reassure the migrants. Several said in interviews that they were unsettled by the masked men. In the past, the Greek government has used the coast guard to deter migration. In May, The Times published video footage showing officers rounding up migrants and ditching them on a raft in the Aegean Sea.

The mission of the 920 is unclear, as is what happened after it arrived and floated nearby for three hours. Some survivors say it tried to tow the Adriana, capsizing it. The coast guard denied that at first, then acknowledged throwing a rope to the trawler, but said that was hours before it sank.

To be sure, attempts to remove passengers might have backfired. Sudden changes in weight distribution on an overcrowded, swaying ship could have capsized it. And while the 920 was larger was than the Adriana, it was not clear if had space to accommodate the migrant passengers.

But Greece, one of the world’s foremost maritime nations, was equipped to carry out a rescue. Navy ships, including those with medical resources, could have arrived in the 13 hours after the Frontex alert.

Exactly what capsized the ship is unclear. The coast guard blames a commotion on the ship. But everyone agrees that it swayed once to the left, then to the right, and then flipped.

Those on deck were tossed into the sea. Panicking people stepped on each other in the dark, desperately using each other to come up for air, to stay alive.

At the water’s surface, some clung to pieces of wood, surrounded by drowned friends, relatives and strangers. Others climbed onto the ship’s sinking hull. Coast guard crew members pulled dozens of people from the sea. One person testified that he had initially swum away from the 920, fearing that the crew would drown him.

Waleed Mohammad Qasem, the 14-year-old who wanted to be a doctor, drowned. So did his uncle, who had posed with him for a selfie. The ship’s captain also died.

Hundreds of people, including the women and young children, inside the Adriana stood no chance. They would have been flipped upside down, hurled together against the ship as the sea poured in. The ship took them down within a minute.

Haseeb ur-Rehman, the Pakistani motorcycle mechanic on the top deck, survived. “It was in my destiny,” he said from a migrant camp near Athens. “Otherwise, my body would have been lost, like the other people in the boat.”

Near the end, Kamiran Ahmad, the teenager who had hoped to study in Germany, turned to his cousin Roghaayan. From the migrant center in Greece, the older cousin remembered his words: “Didn’t I tell you we were going to die? Didn’t I tell you we were already dead?”

Both went into the water. Kamiran’s body has not been recovered.

▻https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/world/europe/greece-migrant-ship.html

J’imagine la tête des profs d’EPS qui font s’asseoir les enfants qui n’ont pas de baskets les jours de sport...

Ah oui, tiens : est-ce qu’on a le droit de dire du mal des profs de sport, sur Seenthis ? (Perso je pense que oui, et même que ça devrait être une condition d’admission.)

María Lorena Ramírez

J’avais deux matières détestées au bahut  : le sport et l’anglais.

Puis, un jour, j’ai croisé au centre naturiste du Cap d’Agde la prof d’anglais avec le prof de sport.

J’ai tellement souri qu’ils ont vu mes dents de sagesse avant qu’elles sortent.

https://i.imgur.com/rJGnNdo.png

Expectation vs reality 😅 the first stage of the Finnish-Russian border #fence. The biggest beneficiary: the contractor. 380m€ 💸💸💸 Scary what you can sell with fear mongering

▻https://twitter.com/JussiPLaine/status/1657101050401177600

W e Were Once Kids addresses the still tender and painful heart of the 1995 film’s aftermath, the deaths of Pierce and Hunter, who could be understood as best embodying the ethos portrayed in Kids. It conveys the difficulties that both of them, like other cast members, faced after the movie had been released: struggling with addiction and alcoholism while facing the challenge of maintaining authenticity after being made into an image, and navigating what must have felt like a make-believe world.

►https://www.artforum.com/print/202209/lila-lee-morrison-on-kids-and-the-surplus-of-the-image-89462

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oww7jZ8pUtw

merci c’est super interessant

pour mémoire un de ceux, bien plus tard, qui n’a pas eu envie d’être un des kids de larry clark :

►https://seenthis.net/messages/338747

J’ai connu quelqu’un qui lui avait tapé dans l’oeil (à Larry), au sortir de l’adolescence, et qui est mort d’o.d 15 ans plus tard. Il y a bien comme un schéma, pas exactement joli joli...

tiens c’est Disney qui a distribué Kids :
▻https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/24/style/IHT-kids-grabs-spotlight-at-cannes.html

Ce qui a permis à Clark d’assurer que personne ne s’est vraiment drogué sur le tournage, et que tout les kids du film sont plus vieux que ce qu’ils ont l’air à l’écran.

The director claimed that the kids on screen were older than they looked, and that none were doing drugs.He even got in a pitch for Disney, the distributor.

J’ai tout de même littéralement adoré Whassup rockers à l’époque. Faudrait que je le revois.

Ce qui est dingue c’est d’avoir aimé à ce point la vision de Clark sur les gamins. ça me fait beaucoup (re)penser à cette citation de Dworkin :

« Parce que la plupart des adultes mentent aux enfants la plupart du temps, l’adulte pédophilique semble honnête, quelqu’un qui dit la vérité, le seul adulte justement, prêt à découvrir le monde et à ne pas mentir. »

Un exemple :

“Larry doesn’t do kids the way other people do,” said Fitzpatrick. “Larry knew early on that to make a film like this he needed to be on the inside of this sort of counterculture.” So at 50 years old Clark taught himself how to skateboard and hung around Washington Square Park everyday getting to know the kids. In Fitzpatrick’s opinion, that time commitment was absolutely necessary, because “teenagers don’t trust adults”, and it was the only way Clark could convince the skaters to take part in his film. “He knew that to get respect from these kids he would have to give them respect,” said Fitzpatrick. “Larry gave them respect and they trusted him to tell their story.”

▻https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/22/harmony-korine-kids-20th-anniversary

on appellera ça :

saisir le versant caché de l’adolescence – autrement et comme personne.

10 choses que la jeunesse doit à larry clark
▻https://i-d.vice.com/fr/article/ywdeax/10-choses-que-la-jeunesse-doit-larry-clark

personne pour se demander ce que Lary Clark doit à la jeunesse...

Peu ont montré avec autant de réalisme le quotidien d’une certaine jeunesse
Dans une interview pour le Guardian, Larry Clark a dit que le plus beau compliment qu’il n’ait jamais reçu venait d’un garçon qui a défini Kids en ces termes : ’’Ce n’était pas comme un film. C’était comme dans la vraie vie.’’

Tiens ils ont parlé du doc dans el pais :

▻https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-07-14/kids-the-indie-movie-sensation-with-a-darker-side.html

In 2021, #Hamilton_harris – one of the boys featured in the film – participated in a documentary titled We were once kids, directed by Eddie Martin. Harris pursued this project after becoming alarmed when he discovered that a large part of the movie’s viewership mistakenly believed that they were watching a documentary.

“My feelings towards the movie started to change after seeing the global reaction it got,” he told Variety. At the same time, he felt that the creators outside the group – Korine and director Larry Clark – failed to capture the strong sense of community that the teenagers had created. While the film reduced the existence of its protagonists to a devastating nihilism, the truth is that those kids – who used skateboarding as an outlet – had formed a family. They were protecting each other, escaping from homes where drug usage and violence were common. Carefree sex was not at the center of their lives: in fact, many of the protagonists were virgins.

(...)

The problematic part came with the female roles. When the women in the gang read the script, they refused to participate. It did not reflect the relationship of camaraderie that united them: it was simply a festival of sex and drugs, a film “about rape and misogyny” says Priscilla Forsyth, who ended up participating in a minor role with only one sentence for posterity (“I’ve fucked and I love to fuck”). On the other hand, the boys could be of non-normative beauty, but the girls chosen to star in the film included 15-year-old Rosario Dawson – whom Korine discovered in a social housing project where she lived with her grandmother – and Chlöe Sevigny, a New York club regular who, after being featured in two fashion editorials and a Sonic Youth video, had become the city’s great underground sensation.

(...)

The director of We were once kids does not point to a culprit, but hints that many powerful people made a fortune while the protagonists were exposed to the world with their allegedly amoral lifestyle.

Merci @tintin

On parlait de cette divergence, en 2015, dans le guardian :

▻https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/aug/19/kids-film-larry-clark-skateboarding-culture-new-york-east-coast-supreme

High says the added storyline was a distortion: “The true story [of Kids] is about a bunch of kids who grew up with literally nothing,” she says. “We might have been from different areas and different races but we came from the same income bracket of broke. We learned how to take care of each other at a time that was one of the rougher periods in New York City’s history.

“The film portrays segregation between girls and guys, which wasn’t reality. The main point [of the film] – the whole virgin-fucking, misogynistic thing – was not necessarily how we lived our lives.”

(...)

To Harris, the group was ahead of its time in a country mired in racism and recession. Intuitively post-racial in a colour-conscious society, the crew formed its own world around skateboarding despite being tethered to a socioeconomic bracket that deemed it invisible

.

Le sujet du film aurait pu être ça :

“In the early 90s we were dealing with crack, the Aids epidemic, racism and all kinds of social injustices. We were totally aware of the social dynamic in the world around us. We were constantly trying to change that, and foster that change as an example,” he said

En terme de révolution, une toute autre paire de manche...

(déso je spam un peu)

Cette #ruse, de faire passer sa vision des choses pour des #preuves.

▻https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2014/jun/25/larry-clark-t-shirts-dressing-young-teenagers

Still, he rejects claims that his previous work is either exploitative or luridly voyeuristic: "I would go to these parties and see fucking, gangbanging and drugs. To me it’s historical evidence. I can only shoot what I see.

“Back then it was a secret world but you know what? Kids was based on reality. That’s what these kids on the street tell me, they say: ’Larry that’s how it is.’ Personally, I feel there’s the argument that if it’s not documented, how would we know it’s going on at all?”

s (France) rue de Turbigo , tu peux rester 9 heures allongé.e.s sur le trottoir, dans le froid, personne ne bouge.
Merci.

« Parce qu’elle nous dit des choses sur ce que nous sommes en train de devenir, l’histoire édifiante de la mort de René Robert est reprise bien au-delà de nos frontières. Puisse-t-elle servir de réveil à nos consciences. »

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1486416302554206212/esWOVkQE?format=jpg&name=240x240#.jpg

France appalled by ‘death by indifference’ of photographer René Robert on a Paris street | USA | EL PAÍS English Edition
▻https://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-01-28/photographer-rene-robert-freezes-to-death-on-busy-paris-street.html

The 84-year-old artist, renowned for his images of flamenco icons such as Paco de Lucía, was left on the sidewalk for hours without anyone coming to his aid after suffering a fall

#monde_de_merde

Héhé ! J’ai été plus longue à écrire mais on a dû le voir en même temps chez cuicui ;)
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/882909

En anglais
Airborne transmission of #Covid-19: A room, a bar and a class: how the #coronavirus is spread through the air | Society | EL PAÍS in English
▻https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-10-28/a-room-a-bar-and-a-class-how-the-coronavirus-is-spread-through-the-a

https://images.english.elpais.com/resizer/x-hz1xPUWBrEeF27IM9sY-KKVuM=/1000x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/CGIPMBM72JE6TGM7MHAEGQ3QN4.png https://elpais.com/infografias/2020/10/aerosoles/dosis/dosis-movil2.gif?v=7109

#visualisation #infographie #sars-cov2 #aérosols

En espagnol,

El Gobierno pone los hospitales privados a las órdenes de las comunidades | España | EL PAÍS
▻https://elpais.com/espana/2020-03-15/el-gobierno-pone-los-hospitales-privados-a-las-ordenes-de-las-comunidades.ht

Las empresas con material sanitario tienen 48 horas para informar al Ejecutivo de sus existencias

El Gobierno ha decidido llevar a cabo medidas inéditas en materia sanitaria en la historia reciente de España, anunció este domingo por la noche el ministro Salvador Illa en una comparecencia de los cuatro ministros designados para la gestión del estado de alarma. La primera, de enorme calado, supone la intervención de la sanidad privada para ponerla al servicio del Sistema Nacional de Salud. Serán los consejeros de Sanidad de todas las comunidades autónomas quienes podrán disponer de “todos los medios” necesarios del sistema privado para hacer frente a la epidemia.

No serán los únicos recursos que podrán utilizar a partir de ahora las comunidades, bajo el mando de Ministerio de Sanidad. “También podrán habilitarse todos los espacios públicos y privados” que puedan ser necesarios para convertirlos temporalmente en nuevos lugares asistenciales para atender a los enfermos.

La primera de las tres órdenes aprobadas este domingo acaba con una tercera medida de tipo laboral dirigida a reforzar los recursos humanos de los centros sanitarios, muy diezmados por los contagios y cuarentenas provocados por el virus. La medida establece que todos los estudiantes en su cuarto año de residencia de especialidades como medicina interna, medicina intensiva y geriatría, entre otras, “verán prorrogada” la duración de sus contratos. Asimismo, “quedan suspendidas las rotaciones” y se autoriza la contratación de facultativos que no hayan logrado completar su especialidad tras aprobar las pruebas de médico residente (MIR).

La segunda de las órdenes está destinada a asegurar que el Sistema Nacional de Salud dispone de todos los bienes y servicios disponibles en España que puedan ser útiles en la lucha contra el coronavirus. El Gobierno da un plazo de 48 horas a empresas y particulares que tengan o puedan fabricar materiales como equipos de diagnóstico, mascarillas gafas protectoras, guantes y otros productos médicos y farmacológicos “a ponerlo en conocimiento” de las autoridades, bajo la amenaza de sanciones para aquellos que no lo hagan.

La tercera y última de las órdenes trata de establecer unas normas sobre el “suministro de información y datos” respecto a la evolución de la epidemia. Hasta ahora estos datos los venía ofreciendo diariamente el ministerio, aunque también las comunidades los actualizaban cuando lo consideraban conveniente, lo que en varios momentos ha creado cierta confusión sobre algunas cifras. A partir de ahora, según Illa, estos datos serán ofrecidos una sola vez a media mañana y de forma diaria por el Ministerio de Sanidad.

et en anglais :

Coronavirus lockdown in Spain: Spanish government puts private healthcare firms at the orders of the regions | Society | EL PAÍS in English
▻https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-03-16/spanish-government-puts-private-healthcare-firms-at-the-orders-of-th

https://images.inenglish.elpais.com/resizer/fe3nwdp7wtgwfFHUxDVbLRLU7Kg=/1000x0/arc-anglerfish-eu-central-1-prod-prisa.s3.amazonaws.com/public/MTEG6G2TXNG6XIBVE3EEUHU75A.jpg

Companies that are holding or that can manufacture health materials such as protective masks have been given 48 hours to inform the authorities on risk of fines for failing to do so

The Spanish government has decided to implement never-before-seen measures in terms of the country’s healthcare system, in a bid to combat the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday night, a day after the Cabinet approved a state of alarm that has confined Spaniards to their homes, Health Minister Salvador Illa announced that private health providers would be temporarily taken over and put at the disposition of the national healthcare system.

Regional health chiefs across Spain will, he added, have “all the means” necessary from the private system in order to deal with the epidemic. Illa added that “all public and private areas” will be available for conversion into new spaces to attend to patients.

According to the latest figures, 294 people have so far died in Spain from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and there are 7,900 confirmed infections. A total of 517 people have recovered and have been released from hospital, while there are currently 382 patients in intensive care.

Also on Sunday, the health minister announced that fourth-year medical students who are carrying out residencies will see their contracts extended. Rotations among medical staff have been suspended, and physicians who have not yet completed their specialty after passing their medical resident tests can now be hired. All of these measures are aimed at easing the pressure on the health system due to the coronavirus outbreak.

In a bid to combat shortages, the government also announced on Sunday that any company that is holding or that can manufacture materials for making diagnoses, protective masks and glasses, gloves and other medical or pharmaceutical products, must make the authorities aware of this in 48 hours, under the threat of fines should they fail to do so.

The third and final measure announced on Sunday relates to the supply of information on the progress of the epidemic. Until now Spain’s regions – who are in charge of their own healthcare systems – have been sending updated figures on infections and deaths to the central government when they considered it convenient to do so, creating certain confusion at times during the crisis so far. From now on, Illa said on Sunday night, the data will be offered just once a day, only by the Health Ministry, at mid-morning.

Ce n’est pas vraiment une nationalisation, non ?

Non, c’est ce que je me suis dit à la lecture de l’article espagnol : les établissements privés sont placés sous l’autorité des exécutifs des régions. Ça ressemble plus à une #réquisition. Qui est peut-être dans l’air (cf. François Salachas à Arrêt sur Image qui appelle à la réquisition du privé… ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/830832 - je ne sais pas à quel moment du long interview)