Report from tonight on aljazeera english:
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2014/02/greece-probes-migrant-boat-rescue-claims-20142416153537353.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/greek-boat-tragedy-migrant-survivors-mourn-lost-relatives
Migrants saved in Greek boat accident mourn relatives – and dispute claims
Survivors say coastguards refused to help them as vessel sank and
stamped on hands of those clinging to Greek boat
Helena Smith in Athens
The Guardian, Monday 27 January 2014 20.14 GMT
Fadi Mohamed, an Afghan who lost his family when the boat sank,
describes seeing coastguards kicking a refugee. Photo: Nikolas
Georgiou/Demotix/Corbis
Even now, eight days later, they can both still taste the sea. Just as
they can still feel the water slipping through their fingers as they
desperately tried to bail out the boat.
And the cries: "help me, help me, help me," the only words the Afghan
and Syrian migrants knew how to say as the vessel went down. "We were so
afraid," said Abdul Sabur Azizi, recalling the moments before he lost
his wife and 10-year-old son to the sea.
"At some point we took the babies and held them up high, above our
heads, to show that there were children on board," the 30-year-old
murmured, his eyes fixed firmly on the floor. "The Greek coastguard
didn't care. They had guns, they were shooting in the air. We told them
the boat had broken down, its engine didn't work but all they wanted was
to take us back to Turkey."
And that, he says, is when the Greek officials got the rope, tied it to
the bow of the ship and began towing it "so fast that the boat began
bouncing this way and that, like a snake, across the water."
It didn't last long – maybe 10 minutes at most. "The waters were very
calm but we were going so fast, we were flying high," said Ehsanula
Safi, his Afghan compatriot still too visibly distressed to make mention
of his dead wife and four children. "When the rope snapped the first
time it made a hole in the side of the boat. The hole got bigger and
bigger, and as the water gushed in we tried to get it out, first with a
bucket and then with our hands."
Eleven are believed to have died when the boat capsized. Only two bodies
have been found. Of those missing, eight were under the age of 12. Of
the 16 who survived all were men, with the single exception of one woman
and a baby.
The events surrounding the sinking of the ship in the Aegean last week
have not only triggered outrage, both in and outside Greece, but
highlighted the increasingly controversial methods being used to stop
immigrants from entering the EU.
Ehsanula Safi, an Afghan migrant, describes how he lost five relatives
off Farmakonisi. Photograph: Nikolas Georgiou/Demotix/Corbis
While Athens has denied allegations that the boat was being towed to
Turkey – arguing that radar records show it was being tugged to the
Greek island of Farmakonisi when the tragedy occurred – refugees insist
they were the victims of an illegal "push-back" operation of the kind
frequently indulged in by authorities to keep human cargo at bay.
More than 150 migrants, the majority of them asylum seekers from Syria,
have perished in "push backs" – a policy pursued since traffickers began
taking the treacherous sea route from the Turkish coast to the Greek
isles following the construction of a metal barrier along the land
border that divides the two neighbours.
"There was a lot of pushing, a lot of kicking," said Azizi with a wince.
"Most of those who died were in the hold. Those of us who fell in the
sea tried to hang on to the coastguard vessel for dear life but they
didn't want us to. They were stomping on our hands with their shoes."
The conservative-dominated coalition of the Greek prime minister,
Antonis Samaras, has ordered an investigation. But as the controversy
has intensified so has the language. Last week, the EU commissioner for
human rights, Nils Muižnieks, said the incident bore all the hallmarks
of a failed collective expulsion. "The Greek government has pledged to
put an end to the illegal practice," he railed. "I urge them to
implement their promise."
As anti-racist groups took to the streets, Athens' shipping minister,
Miltiades Varvitsiotis, countered that Muižnieks was trying to create a
political issue out of the tragedy. Moreover, he claimed, survivors had
changed their accounts of the incident.
"A father who lost his companion and their four children states clearly
that the coastguard 'saved us,'" said the politician, adding that the
sudden change was "striking and curious".
Seated in the migrant centre where he has agreed to speak, Safi, the man
in question, shakes his head in disbelief. At 39, he has lost
everything. "Nothing makes sense," he sobbed. "All I had wanted to do
was get to Europe. Now we don't want anything: asylum, protection,
bread, a home. All we want is the bodies of those we love. And justice
for those who did this to us."
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