Greek police said Thursday (May 4) that they had rescued 13 men, 11 women and 15 children from an islet in the Evros river, which runs along the land border with Turkey. The migrants are Syrian nationals. The Hellenic Red Cross also said there were 20 children, not 15, among the group.

Migrants abandoned

The migrants had been taken to the islet from the Turkish side of the Evros river (known in Turkish as Meriç) in a dinghy and left there, police said, adding that they had been alerted to the group’s presence by rights activists. The islet, near Pythio, is about 80 meters from the riverbank on the Greek side, the news agency AP said.

According to Greek authorities, all the rescued migrants were in good health. However, NGOs contacted by the group in recent days, including the emergency platform Alarm Phone, had said the group had reported that a number of people were unwell.

"There are several sick people among them," Alarm Phone wrote on social media on Tuesday, adding that it had contacted the police as well as the European border and coast guard agency, Frontex. However, authorities failed to respond until around 48 hours later.

Police said the migrants were provided with food and clothing and taken to a reception facility in the northeastern town of Orestiada. They had said that they wanted to apply for asylum in Greece.

It is not the first time migrants have become stranded while trying to cross the Evros river to Greece. Last August, a group of 38 people, mostly from Syria, were stuck on a small island in the river for weeks. They were rescued only after an injunction from the European Court of Justice and reports – which were later questioned – that a girl had died.

Border control

Greece has poured resources into stopping the arrival of migrants across the Evros border, building a 37.5-kilometer steel barrier which it plans to extend by another 35 kilometers by the end of the year. Technology including drones, thermal cameras and sensors have been installed as part of an Automated Border Surveillance System allowing authorities to track migrants in real time.

The systems are said to have helped stop around 265,000 migrants from entering the country irregularly last year, leading rights groups to question apparent failures to respond quickly to migrants in distress.

Also read: Is Greece failing to use EU-funded surveillance?

Greece blames people smugglers for bringing migrants to the border and abandoning them there. But rights groups continue to accuse Greek border officials of illegally sending asylum seekers back across the border into Turkey, without giving them a chance to claim asylum – a practice known as a push back.

Greek authorities deny any involvement in this, despite numerous testimonies from alleged victims and reports from European and UN officials that migrants are often pushed back at the border.

The Evros river is also considered dangerous due to strong currents and hidden underwater obstacles such as logs and branches. Pavlos Pavlidis, a Greek medical examiner, told InfoMigrants (French) that migrants who cross in winter are at risk of drowning or hypothermia. "Those who manage to cross the Evros come out drenched, then they become lost in the surrounding hills," he said. "They hide from the authorities – they freeze to death."

With AP, AFP