Quelle: The Intercept
Coast Guard Fired at Migrant Boats, European Border Agency Documents Show
Zach Campbell
ON A SMUGGLER’S BOAT from Turkey two years ago, 19-year-old Rawan watched the passengers start to panic as a Greek coast guard vessel approached them head on, circling twice. Rawan heard two gunshots ring out from the Greek patrol. Fearing arrest, the driver of Rawan’s boat, a Turkish fisherman, turned the vehicle around to flee back to Turkey. Then Rawan heard more shots.
When the bullet hit her in the lower back, at first she felt nothing. Then, Rawan says, it felt like fire.
Rawan’s husband had made it to Germany a year earlier; both were fleeing their home in Damascus, Syria. Rawan and 12 other Syrians were headed for the Greek island of Chios on a small fiberglass boat, much faster than the inflatable dinghies that many refugees use for the 5-mile crossing.