156 Jutta Lauth Bacas and urge the Hellenic Coast Guard to start a rescue operation (in line with the International Law of Sea23). In other words: in the case of an emergency, the Hellenic Coast Guard is obliged to save any shipwrecked persons regardless of whether or not they are authorized to enter the country. In August 2008, I witnessed an operation where coast guards concluded a search and rescue operation with 49 people missing.24 In this and other cases of successful rescue, the newcomers are transferred to Mytilini, the island’s capital, where they are interviewed by the police, checked by a medical doctor and then brought to a detention centre situated at the outskirts of the island’s capital (Lauth Bacas 2006: 108). In contrast to Greek coast guard officials who stress the effective and legal way their staff monitor the maritime border,25 other voices are more critical towards the patrol operations in the straight between Lesbos and Turkey. The NGO Pro Asyl was in particular very decisive in its criticism by arguing that boat migrants have been threatened by Greek patrol boats and obliged by force to return to Turkish waters in order to prevent their entry to Greek territory.26 The Greek Ombudsman as an independent institution, which investigated the accusations, found no legally valid evidence for these allegations, but also hinted at a “grey zone” outside public control where it is difficult to estimate and to prove what is really happening on international sea borders at night.27 In a second step, the analysis will focus on the local reception structure in Mytilini, the island’s capital. Until November 2009, all boat migrants detected by the coast guard or the police were apprehended, regardless of their sex, their age or their health conditions and transferred to a closed detention centre at the outskirts of the island’s capital. The aliens’ detention centre was placed in a former two-story warehouse building with a total capacity for about 300 people, but from the very beginning of its operation it was clearly not appropriate for any kind of long-term detention due to serious shortcomings in the given infrastructure (large dormitories with no privacy and lacking sanitary facilities).28 The problematic conditions of apprehension in the detention centre of MytiliniPagani have been widely discussed and criticized in the local, national and international press in 2009, referring to overcrowded hangars in which undocu- 23 24 25 26 27 28 The legal issues involved in saving shipwrecked irregular migrants at sea are discussed by Pugh (2004) and Lauth Bacas (2006: 105 f.). See Lauth Bacas 2011 (in preparation). See Triantafyllidou/Maroufof (2008: 42). For more details see Pro Asyl 2007. See published letter of the Greek Ombudsman to the Greek Ministry of Merchandise and Marine from 22. 11. 2007 (in Greek on http://www.synigoros.gr). A report on the lacking infrastructure is given by Lauth Bacas (2008b).