WORLD / EUROPE
Greek vessels block passage of migrant boats: witness
Published: Jul 13, 2021 06:43 PM
Migrants find shelter at a supermarket parking lot on Thursday on the Greek island of Lesbos before police begin an operation to rehouse thousands of homeless migrants at a new site. The move follows the destruction of their camp by fire a week ago.  Photo: AFP

Migrants find shelter at a supermarket parking lot on Thursday on the Greek island of Lesbos before police begin an operation to rehouse thousands of homeless migrants at a new site. The move follows the destruction of their camp by fire a week ago. Photo: AFP



 Tchinda said the longed-for destination of his risky Aegean crossing - the island of Kos - was already tantalizingly in view when Greek vessels halted the boat he was sailing in along with 30 other migrants.

"First a navy ship blocked our way, then it was joined by two smaller Zodiac-type boats," the 39-year-old from Cameroon told AFP. "The coastguards were armed and shouted at us to go home," he said in a series of phone interviews conducted between July 1 and 8. 

A cellphone video shared by the Cameroonian with AFP shows a packed dinghy immobilised by a Greek coastguard patrol boat, with four crew members monitoring the migrants. A second patrol boat and a third vessel can be seen in the distance. "Stay down and stay calm, for your safety," a Greek coastguard, in a mask and gloves, says, holding a long pole. Next to him, a female coastguard fingers a machine gun. 

But the migrants, most of them men wearing life jackets, are agitated. "I am tired," one man shouts back. "Pushback," says another.

Tchinda, who declined to give his last name, said he believed the guards "did not dare" to act violently toward the migrants because they saw them filming. But, he said, they made waves to push the dinghy back toward Turkish waters.

"Luckily no one fell into the water but it could have been very dangerous," the Cameroonian added. 

The Turkish coastguard confirmed in a June 11 written statement that it had picked up a boat the previous day shortly before 1 pm local time.