In the case of 38 immigrants in Evros “TO” spoke to the Minister of Immigration and Asylum Noti Mitarakis.

We asked him to explain to us how it is possible for a group of dozens of people to move around for a month. borders and the Greek authorities were unable to find them, despite the technical means at their disposal.

“Let me tell you that about 1,000 people a day try to cross the border, according to EL.AS. These are transportable and mobile groups. From July EL.AS. he was in different places, he informed us afterwards. He told us that they went there without finding anything,” he says.

In another part of it from his interview “K” says that 38, as they mentioned in their testimony, moved several times to different places. In accordance with “K” report which was published in the newspaper last Saturday, EL.AS Headquarters. was informed of the existence of migrants on 14 July by email sent NGO Human Rights 360. On July 27, the army responded that the island on which the migrants were said to be stranded was in Turkish territory. “When did you inform the Turkish side about the incident?” we asked the minister.

“When this issue began to attract close attention, EL.AS. sent two signals to Captain Andreev in Bulgaria, asking the Turkish coast to withdraw. We have a video of the Turkish authorities going to the island and throwing a boat into Evros to get to the island,” he replied. Mr. Mitarakis points out that the disputed islet on Evros was only 14 meters from the Greek bank of the river. “Stuck in Euros is simply impossible,” he stressed. “Even if migrants are at the center of Greece and Turkey’s ‘cross-cutting’ containment operations?” we asked him. “We do not hide the fact that we do not want anyone to enter Greece illegally. And Turkey is moving forward, which is a violation of the 2016 joint statement.”

Elsewhere in his interview, he stated that during interrogations, the migrants did not mention that they were sent back to Turkey by the Greek police. Corresponding complaints exist in appeals to the European Court of Human Rights.

The Minister disputes that a dead child was buried on the islet. “Judging by the information and photographs we have, there is no missing child. The initial reports we had were wrong,” he says, and points out that in the photos released from the island, he identifies not four girls from the same family, but three, saying that “there is no missing child.”

OUR “K” indicated to Mr. Mitarakis, statements he made after his visit to the prison on 16 August, in which he said that steps would be taken to locate the body and give it a decent burial. A few days later, even the ministry’s report speaks of a “tragedy.”

“On August 16, I said that the evidence shows that there is a child. I talked to people and that was the first assessment. The Greek state cannot draw conclusions in two minutes on Twitter,” he says, adding that he had come to the conclusion that there was no dead child even before his speech in parliament at the end of August.

“Turkey is moving forward in violation of the 2016 Joint Statement.”

Mr. Mitarakis was asked about interviews given by two members of the group in prison, which aired in early September on ANT1. Two men reported the burial of a child.

“Of the statements taken, 10% confirm the fact of the incident. None of them saw anything, their own child was not buried, others said, no one has a photo of the grave and burial place. They don’t want to bury the child,” the minister said, referring to the debriefing conducted at the police station after the group was established.

controversial list

On the evidence on which this conclusion is based, he says that in the original July list, the family claimed four children, not five. “The list is very well put together, it definitely wasn’t written on an island, with a cell phone, it was definitely organized before they started. The family is spelled out in detail, there are no mistakes, the rest is correct and only the child who died is missing,” he says.

OUR “K” brought to the attention of the Minister that the initial list of 50 names of the applicants did not include Bayda’s information and that in the second application to the ECtHR dated 08.09.2008, the appellant organizations stated that she was erroneously excluded, when she was in the original group and had been in contact with them since July. “Indeed, Baida shows up at the last moment,” Mr. Mitarakis said. He describes her as “kind of representative of this effort” due to her knowledge of English and the videos she made from the island.

In their testimony, which the minister emphasized in his statements, the members of the group stated that they were sent to the island under the threat of violence from the Turkish forces. How can Greece consider Turkey a safe third country for Syrians if it recognizes such an attitude towards people? “Turkey hosts 4 million refugees and immigrants. Periodic attempts to instrumentalize several tens or hundreds of people do not change the fact that Turkey is a member of the Council of Europe, a member of NATO, a participant in the Geneva Treaty. So far, we do not find any reason why Turkey cannot fulfill these obligations, and when sometimes it does not, then this is a reason to say that it should do it,” the minister replied.

“The goal was not to harm the government, but to prevent Greece from guarding its borders the way it does,” Mr. Mitarakis said of the Evros case. “They “pulled” the story so that we went to collect them, they got their way.”

On the day when talk to “K” The minister has been criticized on social media. He tweeted a 76,000-view video of his appearance on the show playing himself. “There is a sense that politicians don’t have human lives,” he said, adding, “I didn’t expect it to become so popular.”