With deaths of likely more than 600 refugees off the coast of Greece on 14 June, we are seeing the consequences of the policy that the Tories are introducing to the UK.
The closing of almost all legal routes for refugees. The arrest of any refugee getting through and their incarceration in camps with conditions even worse than the worst prison. All of these are planned for by the UK government. They have now been in place for nearly seven years in Greece.
The boat that sank 50 miles off the Greek coast, the Andrianna, had, by the testimony of survivors who heard them being being counted on, 750 on board, from Pakistan, Afghanistan, many from Syria, and others. One relative from Pakistan, who earlier lived in the UK, said nearly his whole village was on the boat.
I spoke with Syrians living in Germany who on hearing of the shipwreck had driven down to in Kalamata in Greece, where the 102 survivors were taken.
They themselves had braved the long and arduous journey, much on foot, from Syria seven years before.
The women and children left behind were not considered up to such an uncertain and unpredictable journey and had spent years separated from the men, many in the refugee camps on the borders of Syria.
The Andrianna looked like the best hope yet for reunion with their loved ones following the EU’s Fortress Europe policies. The over 100ft in length, was seen as being safer than the smaller boats from which over 25,000 have died since 2015 in the Mediterranean.
The boat set out from Tobruk, on the eastern tip of Libya, bound for the Adriatic — reportedly Italy, possibly Albania, not Greece. Many would have known of boats landing in Greece being pushed back and migrants being beaten up by border police.
In one case in 2021, a cargo ship containing 329 refugees was dragged back and forth for four days between Greece and Turkey by Greek (Hellenic) Coastguard after the ship had broken down a few miles off Crete but not allowed to dock so migrants could get off.
Many of the facts of the sinking of the Andrianna are disputed by the Greek Coastguard, but undeniably they knew the boat was in distress off the Greek coast. It was dangerously over-crowded and that few life-jackets were being worn.
Legal
Passing merchant ships had provided food aid but feared legal action if they were to bring these desperate migrants on board their ships.
Former Prime Minister Tsipras has blamed the Greek government and the EU of having turned “the Mediterranean, our seas, into watery graves”.
Those rescued from the sea by a passing liner were taken to the port of Kalamata where they were dumped in a warehouse by the Greek Coastguard. An operation to cover up was begun. As the huge liner, unusual in this primarily merchant port, and the story of the shipwreck, circulated, many flocked to the port to give whatever help they could to the survivors. News reports started to get out through the helpers and the relief agency staff as they arrived. But then the police and Coastgard took control.
The survivors still in Greece, about 70, have been taken from Kalamata to one of the worst refugee camps in Greece at Malakasa, where there is no electricity, appalling food and poor water supply for the 900 refugees held there.
Protests have been held across Greece against the complicity of the Greek Coastguard and the EU border monitoring force Frontex. The largest in Athens, numbered in the tens of thousands, with massive banners calling their government’s and the EU’s actions mass murder.
There have been many protests in Greece over the last five years at its asylum policies and the appalling refugee camps, but nothing of this scale.
How long this mood of protest goes on, and whether it will lead to dissent amongst workers in the Coastguard (before 2016 they had a very humane record of asylum rescue but the personnel may well have changed), we will see.
The protst to be backed up by international working class solidarity and not only from within the EU states. The Greek protestors and most Greek people are acutely aware of the role of the UK government in creating this problem. It was after all the Cameron government, whilst still in the EU, that started Fortress Europe. It is now Sunak’s government which is closing routes down for refugees that might otherwise relieve the pressures on Greece.