Quelle: Safe Passage

Survivors tell about severe breaches of international law in Turkey.

11.45 PM, January 4, 2016 another boat sinks on its way to the Greek island Lesvos. After 12 hours in a freezing cold January sea, Ahmad staggers to land on the shore of Altinova, Turkey. As soon as his wounded feet reach dry land, he collapses. A local medical staff wraps him in a blanket.

This is the first help that he or any of the 52 people on the boat that would take them to Mytilini on Lesvos receive. Despite panicked screams for help and desperate phone calls to all authorities and contacts they know of.

They even met a boat out there in their peril, drifting towards death.

But no one came. Not on Greek water and not on Turkish water. The boat they met turned and left them.

Next to Ahmad on the shore, which in the summertime is crowded with affluent tourists, the other passengers washed ashore as the sun rises in they sky. Children, babies, mothers and fathers, ever petrified with fear. A little girl, who Ahmad held until she could not fight any longer, is lying there in her pink jacket.

The only survivors from the boat on January 4 are 12 men who travelled alone or with a friend or relative.

When Ahmad is taken in the ambulance he believes he is saved, in safety.

But he is wrong. This frightful story is far from over for him or the other survivors. It is still ongoing, somewhere in Turkey.