The Migrants Nobody Wants: Stranded Between Turkey and Greece

Описание: We patrolled for four days together with the Turkish Coast Guard Command in the strait between Çeşme, Turkey, and the island of Chios, Greece.

The distance between Çeşme, Turkey, and the Greek island of Chios is, in some areas, only seven kilometres.

It is among the shortest sea routes between Turkey and the European Union and can be covered in just half an hour in an inflatable motorboat.

On 18 April, at 1am, we left the harbour to meet a patrol, which had spotted a small floating craft somewhere near the Greek maritime border.

On it were three men from Yemen, one of whom had a disability.

Khaled is the only one of the three men who speaks English.

He claims to have reached the island of Chios, where he was kidnapped, robbed and taken back to sea, where he was abandoned on a life raft.

No one knows for sure who abandoned Khaled and his friends in the middle of the sea.

Migrants like Khaled are just collateral victims of a geopolitical conflict of interests between Turkey and the European Union.

In the first four months of the year, Greek authorities claim to have prevented 40,000 crossings from Turkey to Greece.

A report by Ioana Epure