“These commandos took them to the river, put them in an inflatable boat and dropped them off on the Turkish side. They threw their phones in the river.”
The respondent attempted to cross to Greece three times. The first two times, he made it around 53 kilometers inside Greek territory, was caught by Greek police and taken to masked men that he called ‘’commandos’’ (who wore a face mask that showed their eyes only). These commandos took them to the river, put them in an inflatable boat and dropped them off on the Turkish side. They threw their phones in the river. On the Turkish side, they had to stay for around 6 days in the mountains.
It was around November 2017 when he crossed the border. There was one week in between both tries.
They took two families, one Syrian and one from Iraq. That Greek government took photos of them and put them in the news. The Greek government - it was saying in the news that the Greek government said that they had caught these people next to the Turkish borders and brought them to Greece.
There were around 50 people - 49 exactly – and the government took these two families and pushed back the rest. They were brought by smugglers by car to Greece, they were supposed to be taken to Thessaloniki but then the police came. They caught them. The group was mostly Syrian, there were also two Iraqi families. The commandos came with a really big car and took everyone. They took them to a river and pushed them back.
Nine police cars started to follow them – they were following them for 15 minutes and after that they stopped them. They put them in a big car, a closed one. They do not know if it was the police or somebody else. They could not see anything. And then they took them to the border, to a place close to the river, and then they called the commandos.
They waited there until the night there, and then small boats came and they brought them back over the borders. They waited in a farm, something like a farm. It was close to the river. They waited, sitting, they could not stand up until the night. One of the commando’s asked the respondent ‘how old are you’. And he said ‘55’. And then he said ‘common man, in 5 years you are going to die. Why do you come to Europe?’.
After one week, he tried again. This time, they accepted them and took them to a camp, a detention center, there they found these two families he had told us about earlier. This Syrian and Iraqi family. They told him that since the last day they met, they had been in this detention center.