A.R.S. (son): We stayed in that place only for one day – from morning to night. They arrested us around 9 o’clock in the morning and we arrived in this place at almost 10 o’clock in the morning. There was also a dog, a fat police officer brought with him. He was shouting at the dog: ‘Eat the Talibans! Eat the Talibans!’ I told the guards that my mother is pregnant and they slapped me twice. M.H.S. (husband): On that night around 8:30 or 9pm, I am not sure about the exact time, 10 jeeps and two vans came. They used the two vans to take everybody away: A smaller white van for the families and a bigger van for the men who were more. They put us with two Syrian families in the van. They didn’t tell us where they were taking us or if we would be sent back to Turkey. (...) After half an hour, when the vans stopped and they opened the doors, we were in the woods. Then I realized that they had already brought many persons there. It was dark, and I couldn’t count, but there were at least another 150-200 persons sitting on the ground guarded by police. (...) Only then we realized that they wanted to deport us. There were people from everywhere: Afghans, Syrians, Somalis and Iranians. Half of us were families and half men, the women were crying and imploring them not to deport us. They took all our things, like our bags and threw them away. H.M.S. (husband): The men that were with us when we were sent back, over the river were handcuffed by the Greek police before pushing them back. They tied their hands in their back with plastic handcuffs, so that they wouldn’t swim back to the Greek side once in Turkey. The Greeks told them in English to stay until the morning and wait for the Turkish police to arrest them. First, they handcuffed them in their backs and then tied them in a way that it was impossible to take the handcuffs off on their own. They untied one of them after crossing to Turkey so he could free the rest of them. M.S. (wife): Back in Turkey I noticed that I wasn’t feeling well. We were back in Turkey, when it happened. I was five months pregnant, maybe six. I had to stay in the hospital for almost ten days. The doctors told me that the situation was difficult. They were dripfeeding me to stop the water breaking. They told me there were low chances that my baby would be born alive. My girl was born premature. She was six months old and weighed only 1,1 kilo. She had to stay for two months in the incubator. The doctors said that we needed to examine her when she gets older because she might have brain damage due to her premature birth. (…). Multiple Push-Backs M.S. (wife): They also took everyone’s mobile phones away. They had taken them from the first day, when they arrested us, but never gave them back to us. A.R.S. (son): The Greek police told us in English: ‘Don’t come back again! We won’t give you any water or food. We don’t have jobs here and we won’t give you papers. Don’t come back! If you come back we will kill you all!’ We were all so scared. They then divided us into small groups and put us in the boats. (…). A.R.S.: There were also female officers. Most of them were laughing at us. They were aiming at us with their flash-lights and ordering us to sit down. Whenever someone was not going fast enough the police beat him with batons. They beat a lot of people. (...) I am not sure if they were only Greek police. They were wearing blue uniforms. It was very dark. Some among them were speaking in Greek others in English. They had translators with them. The police were telling in English and the translators were translating it in Arabic for Arabs. A.R.S. (son): The Greek police stayed until the morning on the Greek side of the river aiming their lights at us, telling us to leave. They were shouting: ‘Go away from the border.’ They were waiting at the other side of the river to prevent us from swimming back but for us it was difficult to move. My mother couldn’t walk at all. 62 | aNNEX-iNTERVIEWS L.H. (31 years old) & M.I. (20 years old), from Syria166/ pushed back together five times from the Aegean on 30.7.13 from Samos, 4.8.13 Chios, 11.8.13 Samos, Samos (fourth time without exact date) and 22.8.13 Samos L.H.: ‘The first time was on the 30th of July. We were together with I. all the times. We were 40 people in one boat - all from Syria. There were 11 children, 7 women and some elderly people on board. (…) At 7 o’clock in the morning, just some meters from the coast, the Greek coastguard found us and put us in their boat. The first boat that found us was 15 meters long, grey and white. There were 5-6 police officers on board wearing full-face masks. There was one officer who had a problem in his right wrist. He was wearing long sleeves. M.I.: I could recognize him among 10.000 persons. They shot in the air 3-4 times. We had raised our hands in the air even before they shoot us, because we saw the coastguard boat approaching us. The children started crying. They gave us a rope and pulled us onto their vessel. (…) They pulled the women from the hair and they were saying very 166 | Interviewed in Izmir (Turkey), August 25, 2013 aNNEX-iNTERVIEWS | 63