relatives in Europe. They said they called the Greek emergency number. They called back their relatives on the boat and told them that they had given an alarm. • Putting Lives at Risk The engine of our boat was broke. We were in the sea and could not move. We were afraid. When I saw the Greek coastguard vessel arriving, I felt joy and hope. But the joy was not complete. K.A., A.A., A.R., A.H., A.S., A.M. and B.F., from Syria156/ pushed back from the Aegean Sea near Didim on 28.8.13 When the Greek coastguard vessel came close, the officers asked 10 people from our group to get on their ship. They told us to lie on the ground facing down and they stepped on our back. One of the coastguards jumped in our dinghy and searched the women and touched their breasts. They were screaming in a terrifying way and they put their guns on people’s faces, even on the face of women and children. We were all very scared. Men, women and children, we all cried a lot. My mother had hid some money in her breast. They took it from there. An.K.N.: They were four persons, with guns, wearing black clothes. There were two minors with us. They took them on their ship and ordered them to lie on the ground and body searched them. They undressed one of our group because he had hidden his mobile in his underwear. He was naked. They put us on their vessel, which was not a small one. It had the number 604 written on it. They even took my sick brother and kicked him. They kicked me and punched me on my head. Now someone of our group is in the hospital. He was beaten very badly. F.K.N. (mother): They threatened to kill us. Ar.K.N. (cancer patient): They took all of our things, bags, mobiles, passports, identity cards. Many of us didn’t get our passports back. I didn’t get my passport and neither my mother did. They threw many things in the sea. Some others also told us that they didn’t get their things back. An.K.N.: My brother suffers from high blood pressure and he was crying the whole time. It was very painful. The moment they wanted to pull us back to the Turkish waters, a big touristic ship passed by. When they beat us, we were still in the Greek waters. The touristic boat that passed by us was white, big and it had many floors. It was a cruise ship. It was in the Greek waters. When it passed by us, the men with the masks pulled us into the Turkish waters. We have three brothers and one sister in Europe. We have no one in Syria. Our house was bombed. My brother and my mother need help and I don’t know how to help them. Note: On August 28, 2013 PRO ASYL was contacted by a person that had already given us an interview and he alleged that the boat he was in at that moment had just been pushed back and left adrift in the Aegean near the island of Samos. PRO ASYL called the JRCC (Rescue Center in Pireaus) and informed them about the boat in distress. On August 29, 2013 PRO ASYL visited them in Turkey for interviewing. K.A.: ‘We left Didim (Turkey) at 22:00 o’clock. (…) We were in the sea for a little over two hours. All of a sudden, a searchlight was turned on us. It was at a distance of approximately 15 meters. We hadn’t noticed any lights earlier. We stayed for about five minutes like that and then we raised our hands on our own. They then approached us with their boat. A.H.: They were four persons. The captain of the coastguard boat had black and a little bit curly hair, small eyes and brown skin. He knew some Arabic words. He had a thin face and he seemed sportive. He was about 1.75 meters tall. They were all wearing dark blue uniforms and t-shirts with an anchor symbol on the chest. The second one was wearing eyeglasses and had red hair. He was about 1.90 meters tall and weighed around 110 kg. He didn’t have any beard just some hair on his face. He took his eyeglasses off. He was very aggressive. He would say: ‘Go, go, go, go!’ and: ‘look down!’ The third one was polite, around 1.75 tall. He had a round face. He was also wearing eyeglasses, which he didn’t take off. He was blonde, with curly hair and quite. (…) The fourth one we could not see very well. He had black eyes and he was also around 1.75 meters tall. He was probably sailing the boat. A.R.: They told us ‘come, come’. They then asked us who among us spoke Turkish. We said none of us and we told them we are from Syria. They tied our boat to theirs. We were ten persons. First, they let the girl onto their boat. They were shouting a lot. They left the last one of us in our boat. They asked him to take off the engine. He didn’t understand what they wanted him to do and they yelled at him. He then understood by the signs they made, took off the motor boat engine and threw it in the sea. They were making fun of 156 | Interviewed in Izmir (Turkey), August 29, 2013 52 | aNNEX-iNTERVIEWS aNNEX-iNTERVIEWS | 53