Everything is possible, everything can be transformed by strong social movements!Through our Alarm Phone project and during this incredible year of successful struggles for the freedom of movement, we learned this lesson once again.
OCTOBER 2014 Although we decided to operate the Alarm Phone throughout the entire Mediterranean Sea, during our preparation process we could hardly imagine how to make effectively use of our hotline in the Aegean area. Illegal PUSH-BACKS by Greek coastguards were daily practices at that time and while discussing this issue with refugees who had directly experienced such life-threatening situations, we thought it would be impossible to develop strategies for real-time interventions to prevent these practices.
OCTOBER 2015 Up to 100 distress calls and messages reached our shift teams in one week alone and nearly all of them came from the Aegean Sea.
Every day and night rescue operations were carried out with realtime support of the Alarm Phone – an unexpected U-turn! This changing dynamic was the consequence of several intersecting factors: Syria had come into power and halted most of the illegal push-back practices and also dismantled some pillars of the Greek-European detention regime.