FRONTIER EUROPE Human rights abuses on Greece’s border with Turkey 11 in Turkey either knowing that as a non-European they would not be able to have a permanent refugee status there or claiming that they lacked information on the possibility of seeking asylum in Turkey. Two claimed that the police in the detention facility they were held in told them that their release from detention would be delayed if they applied for asylum. 3.1 PUSH-BACK OPERATIONS PUTTING LIVES AT RISK “We were left in the middle of the sea, with nothing but a damaged boat.” B., 17-year-old Afghan boy detained in a removal centre in Turkey. First-hand testimony collected by Amnesty International reveals that people's lives are frequently put at risk by the actions of the Greek border guard and coastguard while carrying out push-back operations along the border with Turkey. Some of the refugees and migrants navigating the Aegean Sea on small inflatable boats, overloaded far beyond capacity, described how they were at first relieved to see Greek coastguard boats only to discover what they believed to be a rescue was in fact an operation to send them back to their point of departure. In some cases people deliberately damaged their boats once they spotted Greek coastguard, hoping they would be rescued and taken to Greece. B., a 17-year-old from Afghanistan, was detained in a removal centre in Turkey, close to the Aegean coast, when Amnesty International talked to him by telephone in March 2013. He was held in the centre with his two sisters, aged 15 and 16, as well as the three children of his late sister; two boys, aged seven and three, and a girl of five. “I am here with my two sisters and the children of my older sister who is dead. I have to take care of them all but the Greek coastguard took all my money. I don’t know what to do.” He explained that his parents and older sister died in a bomb blast in Ghazni, Afghanistan. Fearing for his life and the lives of the five children placed in his charge, B. left Afghanistan in September 2012 with his sisters, nephews and niece. He recounted how he went to Iran, where he irregularly worked for five months, and then came to Turkey with the hope of entering the European Union. He went to the large coastal city of Izmir, where most refugees and migrants start their journey across the Aegean Sea to Greece. There he negotiated with smugglers to take him and his family to Greece. On a cold night in late February 2013, they were put on board - a rubber dinghy - with 36 others from Syria, Sudan and Iran. The smugglers told them to aim towards the lights in the distance, which they said was a Greek island. “We left at 11:15pm. This was in late February, 2013. But we couldn’t reach the island. We were at sea for three and a half hours. Then the Greek boat with Greek police found us. They took us onto their boat. They beat us very badly. They took all our money, our mobile phones, our clothes. Everything we had. They beat my sister so badly she has bruises all over her now. … So, we were on [the] Greek boat for three hours. At around 6am they took us back to Turkish waters; they put us back on our own boat, they scratched one side of our boat with their knife, they damaged our boat and they took away the motor and left us in the middle of the sea. We were 42 people all together. There were three small children with us: my niece and nephews. There were also other children, but they were older… We were left in the middle of the sea, with nothing but a damaged boat.” Index: 25/008/2013 Amnesty International July 2013