Thursday, March 28

A video shows how the Greek coast guard takes migrants to the sea and abandons them on a raft



Greece takes migrants to the sea, including small children, and leaves them abandoned on a raft. This is clear from an investigation by The New York Timeswhich shows how asylum seekers who had been fleeing the war in the Horn of Africa for years, barely set foot in Europe with the hope of starting a new life, find themselves surrounded by masked men, who corner them and strip them of their clothes. of their belongings and are taken to a boat, in open water and trying to protect themselves from the sun with a 6-month-old baby.

An activist recorded it in its entirety on video and shared it with The New York Times, which has verified and corroborated the images.

The Greek government has not responded to the repeated requests of the American media. But in his election campaign in Lesbos last week, ahead of Sunday’s general election, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis defended his government’s “tough but fair” immigration policies, boasting of a 90% drop in the arrival of “immigrants illegal”.

The government has consistently denied mistreating asylum seekers, saying it bears a disproportionate burden managing new arrivals in Europe.

But the video, provided by an Austrian aid worker, Fayad Mulla, who has spent much of the past two and a half years working on the island trying to document abuses against migrants, may be the most damning evidence to date of the violation by the Greek authorities of international laws and EU rules governing the treatment to be received by asylum seekers, recalls The New York Times.

In addition to interviewing the asylum seekers in Turkey, The Times claims to have verified the footage by performing frame-by-frame analysis to identify the people in the video, geolocating key events, and confirming the time and day using traffic data. maritime, as well as an analysis of the position of the sun and the visible shadows.

The European Commission, after seeing the video shown by The New York Timeshas expressed in writing its “concern about the images” and notes that, although it had not verified the material itself, it would discuss the matter with the Greek authorities.

Greece “must fully respect its obligations under EU asylum rules and international law, including to guarantee access to the asylum procedure,” said Anitta Hipper, spokesperson for migration at the European Commission.

Greek authorities declined requests to meet in person to review the video.





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