Stories of Border Resistance, testimony taken in Lesvos, July 2024
On 15 October 2023, I think at 8.30 in the morning, we left Turkey, heading towards Greece.
The dinghy was not well pumped. One side was not completely pumped and we had to hold it up in the water. We were about two hours in the sea, moving towards Chios. We were very very close to the island of Chios, we passed the small island (Inousses) , in the beginning we wanted to land in Inousses but because we were seeing everything clearly and we were sure we gonna make it to Chios, we unfortunately changed our mind and we continued towards Chios.
After a few minutes we saw a grey boat getting close to us. There were 4 men. Three outside and one in the cabin. They were wearing black masks and black sunglasses. They had dark blue uniforms with short sleeves and it was written Police on their back. They had a big gun, pistols and spears/poles. They started shouting ‘stop’ and they positioned the boat in front of the dinghy. Our boat driver was scared and he jumped to the side. They started beating us with the spears/poles and shouted ‘Go Turkey’.
We were shouting and asking for help. We said if we go turkey, we will die. Turkey kills.
It took 10 to 15 minutes and no one was getting close to the engine to drive the boat back to Turkey. The coast guard vessel was making circles and the coast guard police were beating us with the spears/poles. One man started bleeding from the head. Children were crying. When they saw no one was going to drive the boat the Coast Guard police said
‘Come to the vessel, we go Greece’.
We were scared but also we wanted to believe them. They said, first all of the men should come but the men were very scared and no one went on the vessel.
They pointed at me and my husband and said ‘Come’. One of the masked men put out his hand and pulled me up on the vessel and my husband after me. After, half of us were pulled on the vessel.
They started beating the men on the vessel, I was screaming. Another vessel of the same color and size arrived and they started pulling the rest of the people on board. They were laughing and were saying ‘We take you to Greece’. They humiliated us.
They started searching people and asked for phones. They said ‘If we find a phone, we will beat you up’. I hid my phone and they could not find it , they touched me everywhere. but they found one from three men and they beat them up more. They put all their phones in a plastic bag and started going towards Turkey.
They were going very fast, it took 15-20 minutes. When they stopped, they threw one life raft from each vessel. We were very scared. No one wanted to jump down but they started pushing us. One of the men was shaking and was unable to speak. He was drooling from the mouth. They pushed me down and they pushed him. He fell on my shoulders.
There was a lot of water in the life raft. We thought we were going to drown. One of the vessels left, the other one stayed to watch from afar.
The sea was very wavy and the current was taking us back to Greece. The vessel came back and they threw a rope for us to hold on to. We held on to the rope but it was very painful and we let it go. The vessel came back and started making big waves.
The waves made us drift towards Turkey. We were left in the middle of the sea, alone, for about three hours. We contacted the Turkish Coast Guard and other organisations and asked for help. The Turkish Coast Guard arrived somewhere between 14.30 and 15.00 and took us on a big vessel, the people on the other life raft were taken on a second vessel. When we almost reached the shore, they turned back to the same location from where we were picked up.
One of the Turkish Coast Guards put on a plastic scary face mask (similar to a Halloween mask) and a military helmet and saluted the Greek vessel that was still there. Then we went back to the shore.
When we got off the vessel, the Turkish Coast Guard asked us for money to buy food for us. We did not have money because the Greek Coast Guard took all of our stuff.
They took us to the police station, took our fingerprints and photos, and took us to the detention camp in Cesme.
The situation in the camp was horrible.
The bathrooms were very dirty. There were not enough blankets for everyone. The weather was very cold. In the camp there was a yard in the middle, encircled by iso-boxes. There was not enough space for everyone. We had to fight to have a space inside the iso-box, otherwise we would have had to sleep outside. It was raining and they were throwing the food on the floor and we had to pick it up. They kept us there for three to four days and then let us go with an order to leave the country within three days. We made it to Lesvos after all.
| Stories of Resistance, Lesvos 2025 Despite blanket denials from Greek authorities, “pushbacks” in the Aegean Sea and Greece’ Evros border region are a horrifying reality. For years, the Legal Centre Lesvos has collected hundreds of testimonies of survivors of border violence. Together with Fitilia, over the next year we will publish a series of these anonymized* accounts, with the intention to show that behind every statistic, there is a person risking their life to reach Europe. While these stories highlight the brutality and violence of Greek and European border policies, they are also stories of resisting border regimes. They are a call to action – a stark reminder of the urgent need to continue the fight to dismantle the borders that surround us and with it the violence of Fortress Europe. *All identifying details, including names and exact dates have been removed, however, the stories published remain true to the survivors’ own accounts, and all have consented to the publishing of their testimonies. |