The number of dead migrants between Greece and Turkey has declined since the beginning of the year, but the NGOs challenge the illegal method of repression of Athens.
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Around 6 o’clock in the morning, Tuesday, October 26, three children aged 3 to 14 and a woman, all from Africa, were found dead drowned by Greek coastguards off the island of Chios , just 18 kilometers from the Turkish seaside town of Çesme. According to the Communiqué of the Greek Port Police, none of the 27 passengers wore a lifejacket, while the windproof winds 6 on the Beaufort scale made the crossing perilous.
“It is the reality of the exploitation of migrants by criminal gangs in the Aegean sea – unscrupulous traffickers who put lives in danger on overloaded canoes unfit for sea navigation off Chios”, Denounced on Twitter the Greek minister of migration, Notis Mitrachi, photo in support of the blue boating chaviring under the waves. “The Turkish authorities must act more to prevent the activity of criminal groups that exploit migrants. These crossings should not even be able to take place,” the minister laid.
αυτή ίίίίι η πραγματικότητα της εκμετάλλευσης μεταναστών απο εγκληματικές συμμορίες στο αιγαίο. Αδίστακτοι λαθροδια … https://t.co/jpiltbzovw (@ όότης μηταράκης – Notis Mitrachi)
In 2020, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had listed more than 100 dead or disappeared at the Aegean Sea. Prime Minister Greek, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, assured, during an interview with the October 1, “defend land and maritime boundaries in the greatest respect for human rights, always placing The protection of people at sea as a first priority “. “Nobody drowned in the Aegean Sea this year,” he added. But, according to UNHCR, three shipwrecks took place between January and March, making six deaths, one of which in the Greek territorial waters off the island of Lesbos.
The Greek Prime Minister also stated that “networks of smugglers who benefit from human suffering had been destroyed” and that “migratory flows had dropped by 90% compared to 2019”. According to human rights defenders, and after many journalistic surveys, this decline is nevertheless the result of systematic and illegal refills of migrants to Turkey. So far, Athens has always denied use this practice, contrary to the Geneva Convention and International Law. But Brussels, in particular the European Commissioner of Internal Affairs, YLVA Johansson, and UNHCR press the Greek government to set up an independent body to control abuse and violations of human rights at borders.
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