By
Sue Lloyd-Roberts
BBC
Newsnight
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Coastguard
signals to refugee boat
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Some
of the Syrians fleeing the conflict in their country have crossed
Turkey aiming for Greece, in order to claim asylum in the European
Union. But to get there they have to take to boats - and there have
been persistent reports of Greek officials pushing them back into
Turkish waters, sometimes with fatal results.
"Everything
we would do for our families and our fathers, we do the same thing
for these people. We bury them in the Islamic way," says Ekrem
Serif-Oamadoglou, as he points to 400 freshly dug graves clustered on
the remote hillside.
The
cemetery is just outside Sidiro, a Muslim village on the Greek side
of the Evros river, close to where it forms a fast-flowing,
kilometre-wide barrier between Greece and Turkey.
The
400 dead are all people who have drowned as they attempted to cross
the river and slip illegally into Europe. It is only here, at the
end, that they find friends in Greece, the members of the local
Muslim community who bury them.
"They
came from places all over the world, but we regard them as brothers,"
says Serif-Oamadoglou, the local imam's son. "They came here for
a better life, but unfortunately they were unlucky."
A
large portion of those currently seeking that better life are Syrians
fleeing the violence that has riven their homeland.
For
two years now TV news crews have filmed lines of mainly women and
children making their undignified exit along the dusty roads that
lead from Syria into Turkey.
On
foot, carrying plastic bags filled with clothes and household items
grabbed at the last minute, they are now crossing at the rate of
7,000 a day, according to the UN.
Some
stop in the refugee camps which dot the borderlands or try their luck
in towns like Gaziantep, 100 km (62 miles) into Turkey and now home
to 57,000 Syrians. But those with money move on to Istanbul, the
ancient crossroads between East and West and gateway to Europe.
From
there migrants until recently travelled to Edirne, a city which sits
right on the Evros river. Under cover of darkness, smugglers put them
into rubber boats and pushed them off into the dangerous currents.
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False
leg lies washed ahore on beach
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Salwa
al-Rajo's family made the journey six months ago as part of a group
of 40 Syrians.
They
fled Syria because the father worked in government intelligence and
the rebels were threatening to kill them - but it is the crossing
over the Evros that still gives them nightmares.
Mrs
al-Rajo says that, to her horror, when their boat got to the Greek
side, the police there separated them and pushed them back.
"We
were put into a rubber boat. I didn't know where my children were, or
my husband. I was about to fall into the water, I grabbed the
policeman's hand, but he knocked me away," she says.
"There
was another woman who lost her glasses. She said, 'I can't get in to
the boat, I can't see.' The policeman started to beat her up. Her son
said, 'Why are you beating my mum? She's an old woman.' The policeman
got his gun and put it to his head and said, 'Shut up!' And so they
got us in to the boat and pushed us in to the water."
There
have been many reports of refugees being pushed back into the river,
but Greek police reject the claim.
"There
were some cases that, while they tried to cross the river, they
drowned. The currents are so strong, as you know," says Major
General Emmanouil Katriadakis, the government spokesman on
immigration.
"But
nothing like this has happened since Operation Shield took effect
because now we are present on the river banks and if people are in
danger we go to help them."
Operation
Shield was launched last summer to close what was Europe's most
porous border. All EU police forces now take their turn in helping
the Greeks patrol the frontline.
Now
if the river alone fails to stop migrants there are patrol boats full
of sophisticated detection equipment, foot patrols and sniffer dogs
on the shore, and a formidable fence which was completed a few months
ago at a cost of 20m euros (£17m).
So
the Syrian refugees must now choose another route.
Starting
from Istanbul again, the refugees are taken by road to Turkey's
western Mediterranean coast from where it is just 12km (7.5 miles) to
the closest of the Greek islands, Lesbos, with the border between the
two countries running along the water in between.
If
you have money and a European passport it is a pleasant and
comfortable ride across the Aegean. If not it is a journey filled
with danger.
Deysem Siti, head of the Kurdish community in the nearby Turkish city of Izmir, was present as the bodies of 66 drowned Kurdish Syrians were dragged ashore in September 2012.
"These
people don't care. They put the women and kids below the deck and
locked it. It was a small boat, built for 20 people, they put 110
people in it," he recalls.
"It
couldn't carry the weight. It only got 10m from the shore when it
sank."
"Thirty-three
of them were children, I saw a two-month-old, five-year-old,
three-year-old, seven years, there were young women in their 20s. I
saw a child, the only survivor of a family of 11 - his father,
mother, sisters and brothers were all dead."
The
incident is just one of many. Hundreds of refugees are known to have
drowned over the last year, but the true total is uncertain because
not all bodies are found.
Just
a few weeks ago, Adib Hachach, a Syrian who has lived in Athens for
12 years, received a call from the coastguard at Lesbos, to collect
the bodies and belongings of his brother Omar, his sister-in-law and
their three young children, all of whom had drowned.
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Syrian
Adib Hachach on the deaths of his brother's family
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The
remains of the youngest, two-year-old Fatima, have never been found.
Hachach
says that he spoke to survivors from other smuggling boats which had
set out at the same time.
"They
told me that their boats had been capsized and pushed back by a Greek
boat. They say it was the Greek coastguard. There were nine on my
brother's boat and none survived, so I will never know the truth,"
he says, sobbing.
Refugee
support organisations have been getting many reports of a deliberate
"push back policy" by the Greek police and coastguard in
which survivors claim boats are shoved from Greek waters back into
Turkish ones, a dangerous tactic at sea and at night when most of the
smugglers' boats operate.
Amnesty
International has collected information on 40 alleged incidents from
the Aegean sea and the Evros in recent months.
The
Greek police and coastguard robustly deny the claims. On a night
patrol with the Greek coastguard, the boat's skipper Lyropoulos
Vasilis tells me, "This is a big lie".
The
refugees put themselves at risk, he says, by deliberately scuppering
their vessels when they see a patrol boat, so that the coastguard
will be forced to rescue them and carry them to Lesbos.
Those
that make it to the island are met by volunteer doctors who check the
new arrivals over, but neither food nor shelter is offered by the
authorities.
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Syrian
refugees clamber ashore, Lesbos
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When
I visit the quayside where they end up, I see a group of about 40
people, including women and children, left out in the open to spend
an uncomfortable night in the rain just metres from the bright lights
of Mytilene, one of Greece's most popular holiday resorts.
Their
only meal is provided by a soup kitchen which was set up by
volunteers on the island to help locals hit by the Greek economic
crisis, but which is now pressed into helping those in even greater
need.
After
36 hours on the island the refugees are allowed to take a ferry to
the mainland, but there they face many further hazards.
More
than 9,000 Syrians have been arrested and detained in the country
over the last two years, and only two out of the hundreds of Syrians
who have applied for asylum have been given it - an approval rate of
less than 1%, compared with the 90% rate for Syrians applying
elsewhere in Europe.
The
al-Rajo family ended up in a prison in Greece for several months,
after their second attempt to cross the Evros.
The
family of six has now been released, but is stranded in a one-bedroom
apartment in Athens paid for by members of the Syrian community.
Salwa
al-Rajo says that they sold everything they owned in Syria to fund
their escape, but have lost all of their money to the river smugglers
and another trafficker whom they say swindled them out of 18,000
euros (£15,000) paid in a bid to secure fake passports and passage
to Sweden.
The
older boys in the al-Rajo family do not dare leave their apartment
for fear of arrest.
Al-Rajo
and her 17-year-old daughter, Walaa Ulwan, have taken to disguising
themselves. Both of them have uncovered heads, the mother's hair is
dyed blonde, the daughter's is blonde with pink streaks. They each
have garishly painted nails and wear make-up.
"When
I first came, I wore the hijab, but people told us that the fascists
would attack us because we looked like Arabs and would kill us,"
al-Rajo explains. "So I abandoned my hijab, I changed my hair
colour and I and my daughter now wear make-up, so we look European.
We did all this because we are afraid that the racists will hurt us."
Greece's
right-wing, anti-immigration party, Golden Dawn, now holds third
place in popular support among political parties in Greece.
Beset
by a harsh austerity programme, the Greeks have little time for the
thousands of Syrians at their door. The truth is that the Greeks do
not want the Syrians and the Syrians do not want to stay in Greece.
But, having made it to here, they are stuck.
Watch Sue
Lloyd-Roberts' full Newsnight report as she follows the journey made
by Syrian refugees trying to make their way into Europe
5
June 2013
