Officers of the Greek Coast Guard fired at boats carrying refugees and migrants, documents of the European Border Agency Frontex show. One of the incidents described by online publication The Intercept, occurred two years in March 2014, when a small boat carrying 13 Syrian refugees was trying to reach the island of Chios in the eastern Aegean Sea. A total of 16 shots were fired, three passengers were injured.
According to website The Intercept that revealed the story and published the Frontex documents, “after the shooting, one of the coast guard officers involved was arrested. According to court reports, he admitted finishing a clip of 30 bullets and reloading before continuing to shoot. In court, two other officers aboard blamed him, saying he acted on his own and not on orders from his superior. The shooting was treated as an isolated event.”
Less than a month later, a Greek court ruled that the coast guard officers, including the one arrested, did nothing wrong; they were shooting to stop a suspected smuggler.
They fired warning shots…. an isolated incident?
A collection of incident reports from Frontex that operates alongside the coast guard, obtained by The Intercept, reveals “a broader Greek and European tactic of using weapons to stop boats driven by suspected smugglers — and injuring or killing refugees in the process.”
“The documents, which were meant to be redacted to shield operational details but were inadvertently released by Frontex in full, reveal multiple cases of firearms use against boats carrying refugees,” the website notes adding that “The Intercept has elected to publish the unredacted versions to demonstrate how refugees’ lives were endangered during these incidents.”
The reports span a 20-month period from May 2014, two months after the Chios shooting, to December 2015. “Each case of firearms use — even if it resulted in someone being wounded — was described as part of the standard rules of engagement for stopping boats at sea,” The Intercept reporter notes.
Fire warning stops to stop the smugglers, injuring the passengers….
The full story including the Frontex Documents and map of incidents are here on The Incercept.
