“They told us, just drink from the toilet.”
The respondent was pushed back to Greece two times in September 2017. The respondent had crossed the Greek border when they were caught and brought to a jail, a detention place. They had been walking for 4 hours when they were caught. The police, dressed in a dark blue uniform arrived and caught them. The Greek police came with metal sticks and had guns. They started to beat them, even the kids. The respondent was trying to protect his daughter. They hit her on the leg and broke her leg. She was nine years old.
They brought a big car to take them to the police station. There were Iraqi’s, Syrians, Kurds, Arabs and Algerians. When they got to the station, they were told to sit down and look at the ground. They weren’t allowed to move. They were like hostages. The station was like a detention centre. They put everyone in the same room. They asked for food and water but they were denied. They were there for 20 hours without any food or water. ‘They told us, just drink from the toilet’. They were told that if they wanted food, they had to give money to the guards who would go buy them food.
At the end of the day, masked people came and brought cars to take them to the border. The masked people were wearing the same clothes as the police but had masks on their faces. There were almost 80 people, they brought 2-3 military cars. Then they began beating them again, screaming ‘get in the car’.
They took all of their phones. They checked their bags and took whatever they wanted from them. When they got to the river, there were a lot of people, about 250 persons. They were brought for a different centre. They stayed at the river for 20 minutes. There were more than 20 masked persons present. They sent them back to Turkey in the night.
The respondent stated that they were checked twice to make sure they weren’t hiding anything. This meant no one could take pictures or record the incident, as it was impossible to hide a phone. They made them take off their clothes for the check.
In Turkey, they spent 22 days in Jail, in a place called ‘Canakkale’.