(1/8) In November 2019, we interviewed people who had been held and mistreated in an obscure detention centre near the village of Poros, #Evros, Greece, before being forcefully and illegally pushed back to Turkey.
vimeo.com/397211174
vimeo.com/397211174
(2/8) Recently, @nytimes reported on the presence of this centre, bringing a relatively unknown detention facility to international attention: nyti.ms/2Q5Vuko
(3/8) Our methods helped witnesses reconstruct the facility from memory. The process aided their recollection and helped corroborate their testimonies. The models produced from witness memory matched the one we built from satellite images and photos taken on the ground.
(4/8) We discovered that the centre was built as a military facility, but was transferred to the @hellenicpolice in 2012 and repurposed with @EU_Commission External Borders Fund, operating officially as a border guard station to detain migrants when other sites are over capacity.
(5/8) We sourced the respective contracts from 2011 (in Greek). They can be accessed in full here: astynomia.gr/images/stories…
Read a relevant article by @RESPOND_H2020 here: bit.ly/2vRrnGH
Read a relevant article by @RESPOND_H2020 here: bit.ly/2vRrnGH
(6/8) We found that in practice, the Poros facility operates as one of the main nodes of the illegal pushback infrastructure, a ‘deport centre,' where migrants are subjected to degrading and violent treatment, before being pushed back across the Evros/Meriç river.
(7/8) During his recent visit to #Evros, the @PrimeministerGR was shown an operational map. The Poros facility, annotated here, has been central to GR govt’s violent response to refugees attempting to cross the border over the past week.
(8/8) Our investigation into the killing of Muhammad al-Arab in the Evros/Meriç Delta exposed this matrix of border violence. A full report on human rights violations in #Evros will be published in collaboration with @rights360
in the coming months.
in the coming months.
