The case of Baydaa S. is handled by the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the main “source” of the magazine Spiegel reports on a non-existent, as it turned out, incident with the death of a child in Evros. According to the newspaper, the German magazine “instead of honestly resigning itself to its own failures, continues to deceive the public to this day.”
Spiegel was recently forced to remove three articles and a podcast because they were based on fabricated stories, the Zurich newspaper notes. “One question remains: are the creators of Germany’s most replicated and quoted flagship media simply naive, or are they deliberately hiding the fact that they were deceived by a witness who was more fictitious than reliable?” writes a publication that tried to talk to Baidaa after discovering her in the Rhineland-Palatinate countryside, but the 27-year-old refused.
“No, I don’t want to talk about the island and Greece anymore. It was a difficult, sad time. Now I want to start a new life,” he told NZZ reporters.

Exactly how Baidaa was involved in the case remains unclear, the newspaper notes, but explains that a young woman who appeared on social media as a cosmopolitan “authority” suddenly discovered that in August last year she was asking for help on behalf of 38 refugees who allegedly helplessly stuck on the island of Evros.
“This is the start of an international campaign against EU policy. about immigration (…) Spiegel speaks of a common European crime”, referring to the alleged opposition from Greece. “In this case, a girl named Maria died from a scorpion sting because the EU authorities did not offer help,” NZZ notes, referring to the publication of a German magazine.
NZZ also explains that “Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan regularly threatens war against Greece, using millions of immigrants and Syrian refugees as leverage against the EU.” and adds that “according to rescue groups, traffickers repeatedly create emergencies in order to convince the authorities to intervene, i.e. with babies who are supposed to be sick when they are healthy” and that “NGOs that promote the unconditional right to immigrate often present migrants’ claims as facts, and journalists, in turn, treat these stories as research.”
Baidaa S. was in contact with Greek NGOs, and a lawyer from one of these organizations put her in touch with a Spiegel correspondent, the report says, and lists questions that arose in connection with the coverage of the case. According to her, Baidaa disappeared the day before the group of immigrants she represented arrived in Greece. How was he able to leave Greece as an asylum seeker? Was he a refugee in the summer of 2022 or was he faking it for the media? “Her name is not even on the list of refugees sent to the European Court of Human Rights”, her alleged grandmother, whom she spoke about in video messages, did not exist, and little Mary, who allegedly died on the island, probably does not exist either.” NZZ writes and points to Spiegel’s attempt to control the scandal with all sorts of maneuvers and present the case as a “sad failure”.
On December 30, 2022, the journal publishes its clarifications. “The articles should have been worded more carefully,” Spiegel wrote. “The deputy director of international news turned the refugees’ claims into facts, nobody checked them,” NZZ counters and talks about “one of the biggest cases of fake news since the Klaas Relotius scandal (s.c.: former editor of Spiegel, who in 2018 admitted that in at least 14 articles he misrepresented facts or fabricated allegations).
He also notes that the magazine correspondent in Greece “followed” Bayda S. on Instagram, but apparently did not notice anything in her past life that did not correspond to the woman of last summer, who looked sullen and untidy.
“There are serious doubts about the credibility of Baidaa S,” the Swiss newspaper continues, adding that even the non-governmental organization Humanrights 360, which informed the media about the Euros case, eventually publicly distanced itself from its message, writes Spiegel. Moreover, when NZZ asked Spiegel “why Baidaa S. is still being named as a witness in his report”, the magazine simply cited “whistleblower and source protection” to not answer.
The NZZ report ends with a question the newspaper asked Baidaa about her grandmother, for whom she allegedly asked for help. According to the young woman, the 70-year-old man must be in Greece. “My grandmother is not yet in Greece,” he replied.

Source: RES-IPE