Tag Archives: news

In the “village of all together” waiting for the police….

By Anthi Pazianou / published in “Efimerida ton Sindakton”

Crossing Borders

Since last August 1,200 refugees have been arrested in Lesvos for illegal entry into Greece. This was brought about by the draconian measures on the border between Evros – Northern Greece and Turkey. In the name of ‘Fortress Europe’, refugees, mainly from Afghanistan and Syria, were forced to turn back and ultimately choose a more hazardous entry into Greece by sea.
On the 14th December 2012, 29 refugees didn’t reach their destination. According to the testimony of the only survivor, the boat in which they were travelling suddenly turned upside down. 21 corpses were recovered over the next 2 days while the rest, including children, are still unaccounted for.
Continue reading In the “village of all together” waiting for the police….

In Greek migrant camp, refugees find tough road to Europe

By Naomi Kresge

It was 6.30 a.m. on a Saturday when Greek Coast Guard Ensign Chrisafis Theofilos’s boat got a report of a migrant drowning off the coast of the island of Lesvos.

As dawn began to break, Theofilos sped south toward the man’s coordinates. His scheduled departure had already been delayed five hours by a broken radar system that headquarters in Athens hadn’t yet fixed. That made night patrols too dangerous. Before Theofilos got to the man, another Coast Guard boat had already picked him up and taken him to the hospital with hypothermia.
Continue reading In Greek migrant camp, refugees find tough road to Europe

21 dead migrants found on December 15 at the coast of Lesvos – two survivors – the rest is still missing!

On Saturday 15th December in the early morning hours the coast guard found 18 corpses of migrant men and one survivor in Thermi, Lesvos. Until now 21 corpses have been found, two persons have survived (one is in Mytilini and one in Turkey) and seven are still missing. The survivor found first on the Greek side informed the authorities that they had started with a ship of 30 migrants from Turkey which capsized on Friday. the authorities try to locate the rest of the migrants in the sea now – among them two women and two children.

Only one 16-year-old survivor has been plucked out of the water and was hospitalised in the island capital Mytilene and another 17-year-old on the Turkish side. The young boy found in the sea near Lesvos told investigators most of those on board the boat which also carried women and children were from Afghanistan with only two persons from Turkey. Greek public television Net said two women and two children had been among the passengers. The group set sail from the western coast of Turkey on Thursday but ran into bad weather that sank their boat during the night, about two miles off Lesvos.

UPDATE: Two of the corpses were recognised by relatives living in Greece and Sweden respectively. One of the is a 17-year-old whose cousin came to recognise him from Naxos where he is living and the other is a 42-year-old whose brother came from Sweden to check for his whereabouts. Through the recognition of the 17-year-old it became known that there has been found another survivor on the Turkish side. The young survivor found in Lesvos left hospital on Tuesday 18 and was transferred to the detention cells of the coast guard.

yahoo news (in greek)
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tvxs (in greek)
lesvos news (in greek)
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