“They were screaming in English: ‘what are you doing here? Muslim people should not come to Greece!”
The respondent was travelling on the 4th of June, this year. His wife, his two little children – a little girl of three years old and his new-born son of one month old, and him. From Istanbul, where they were living before, they found a smuggler with whom they could cross the border to Greece. They arrived in Edirne that night. And from there, they tried to cross the river.
When they wanted to cross the border from the river bank at the Turkish side, he saw that his wife was missing - but he had dizziness in his head, and thought she must have gone to one of the other boats. When he sat with his children in his boat he could not see his wife. The boat was full with people when they were crossing. In his group there were two adult men, one woman, and four children, and the smuggler. But there were two boats. And then, he saw her sitting in that other boat.
His boat went first. And when they reached the other side of the river, he could see those men, ‘commando’s, showing up. There were three or four, he cannot remember precisely. And they started screaming. The other second boat, with my wife, was still at the Turkish side of the river. That was the last time he saw his wife.
One of the guys spoke English. So he could understand what those men, the ‘commando’s’, were saying. They were screaming in English: ‘what are you doing here? Muslim people should not come to Greece!’ But this guy was Christian. And he showed the cross that he wore around his neck. He said: ‘Why? I am Christian. Why are you saying that?’
The commando’s came down and started to speak gently with them, with that guy especially. The guy introduced himself and said: ‘I am Christian and I was living in Syria. The Islamic war happened and I ran away to fight. Now I am here and you are trying to push me back to them’. The man showed his cross and pointed to him (the respondent), and said at that first moment that he was a Christian as well. The commando’s helped them to get out from the boat and started to speak with them. That guy was speaking on behalf of their group.
After that they got down from the boat. The commando’s were wondering – how can this be a family? Who of the men is this woman’s husband, and from those who are the children? So he took his daughter and his son with him, and the commando’s were asking him: ‘where is your wife?’. He answered them that she was still standing at the other, Turkish side of the river, left with the second boat. That second boat did not depart because of the commando’s that they had seen coming. He pointed them to the other river side where his wife may be standing. The commando’s told him: ‘don’t you worry, we are going to send a boat to get her.’ And then they walked up, and there was a car that was waiting to take them to the police station.
He says commando’s because they were very big, had a wide posture, muscled and their faces covered with masks. Only commando’s look like that. Commando’s that say that Muslim refugees should not come here. They repeated that. They were wearing military uniforms; green and black and brown. Two of them were wearing a mask, one was without.
He can speak Greek, he understands Greek. But he did not speak with them – he remained silent. But he could hear them speaking. And they were speaking Greek. As soon as we got on the road, there were a lot of these commando’s and they were all speaking Greek. They saw these others standing at the car that was waiting on the road. And some of them were in the woods. They were hiding the car [invisible from the riverside]. So only after they walked for 5 minutes from the river side that car appeared. There were a number of other commando’s there around the car.
When they arrived there, the commandos started screaming at them. But after that man showed them his cross and said that he was a Christian, they calmed down and started listening. Those other men around the car were nice as well. The first commando crew, to whom the man said that they were Christian, they said to him: be nice, be gentile with them – and the man showed them his cross again as well – they were nice, it was good.
The commando’s wanted to make sure that that man [the other man with the cross] really is Christian, so they asked him a question about the bible in English. That guy speaks English and answered them directly. They also asked a lot about him (the respondent) – if he was a Christian too. That other guy this time told the truth and said that he was a Muslim. That he was a Kurd. But when those military officers started asking him, he said that he does not speak English or Greek, only Kurmanji. They nevertheless let him go with the rest of the group. They showed mercy with him, they saw the baby and that he was crying, so they showed mercy.
They did not take anything from him there at the river side. When they arrived at the police station, they took everything from him but returned to him as soon as he got out.
At the police station there was the normal police and the commandos. And other refugees. He doesn’t know if they were also being released. He was released before them. He was not allowed to speak with them and he was kept in a different room. He could see the other refugees, but they were in separate places. He listened through the walls, they were speaking Arabic. Some of them said that they had been there already for 6 or 7 days. It was a real police station. From the first look at that place you can say that it was a police center. It was located outside of this [unnamed] village. Something like half an hour walking to the village. So it was close to the river and close to the village.
[In the police station] His one-month old baby was crying. He wanted to have milk from his mother. But he instead had to give him milk from the bottles. The baby was silent every two hours, and he ordered milk from the police station. He had to sign every two hours. And they were bringing milk to him.
In total, they spent some 27 hours in the police station. They arrived at 10 am, and got out the next day at 1 pm. The police station was a 20 minutes drive by car from Alexandroupoli.