On mission on Samos Island, Cornelia Ernst, from the German Left Party Die Linke, met with five asylum seekers who say they escaped this illegal practice.
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“When we went out of the boat, we heard shots, we climbed into the mountains. We were five adults and we could run … but the nineteen other people, including three children, have disappeared”, testifies. A young Somali, in a broadcast video Friday, November 5th on Twitter by Cornelia Ernst, member of the German Left Party Die Linke.
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During his three-day visit with a delegation of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, in Greece, and in particular on the island of Samos, where in early September a new ultrasound camp was inaugurated, the MEPTÉE met five Somali refugees who claim to have escaped back to Turkey. A practice contrary to international and European rights which consists in not registering asylum seekers in Greece and to return them to force to Turkish territorial waters.
Police that “intimidates”
On November 3, when Cornelia Ernst and his colleagues meet several NGOs in Samos, a lawyer and humanitarians of doctors without borders (MSF) inform them that “at this time even on the island a group of people is afraid to be repressed and called an emergency telephone line to ask for help “. Cornelia Ernst said then took the “personal decision” to follow the humanitarians to see with his own eyes what was happening. The delegation followed the program that was planned for their visit and did not wish to join the expedition.
With three members of MSF, the MEP is therefore on the location indicated at the emergency applicants. At first, the police do not let them go, but Cornelia Ernst shows his member card of the European Parliament. “There were at least four police cars around the site, (…) some police officers had uniforms, others not. Two men in blue uniform without badge wore black masks covering their face,” describes the elected.
After fifteen to twenty minutes of research, four men and a woman coming out of bushes. “They said they were Somali and that they had arrived at night with nineteen other people they lost sight after landing. Among them were women and three children,” says Cornelia Ernst. Frightened, asylum seekers were hiding for fear of being returned from force to Turkey by the police.
“When we are going to do this type of intervention, which, unfortunately, more and more often happen to us clothes, water, food, because refugees are soaked, dehydrated, And they are cold, “says Patrick Wieland, MSF’s head of mission in Samos.
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