F.K.N.: We could not help. It was so terrible. F.: Then they checked our things. They took our mobiles, toilet articles. Many things: Mirror, shaver, etc D.: They hit us everywhere: on the back, on the legs, everywhere. Only the four of us. They tied our hands in the back with plastic handcuffs forced us to lie down under the sun and kept on beating us. The police said that one of the four of us was the captain and one the smuggler. So they kept asking whether we were the smugglers but we denied. We told them we are refugees. A.: The rest of the group remained for three hours on their knees with their hands behind their neck. They took our mobiles. Then they took us all in a basketball field and left us under the sun. A.K.: They forced us go up on the hill. There were two buildings on the left hand. We walked for about 100-150 meters uphill. The route was very bad. There was a basketball field, with two baskets. The outside line was white. The inside was grey blue. Beside the basketball field there were three building. There were dorms. G.: They took us to a kind of animals’ facility. The place was five to ten meters long. Maybe it was like three meters high. C.: One of the four officers had a red beard and a tattoo. I was beaten that much, that the only thing I could see was his tattoo. It was a relatively big one, around his elbow. They were hitting us on our bones in order to break them - not on the flesh. Another officer had dark hair and spoke Turkish. He asked me, while he was beating me, whether I spoke any Turkish, but I told him I couldn’t understand. I only speak Arabic and Kurdish. The third one was tall and thin and with blonde hair. The fourth one was a ‘commando’. A.K.: One was tall, a little bit fat and had tattoos on the arms. I would always recognize his voice- it was very strong. He speaks English. Sometimes he spoke German with another officer. I know this because one of our group – E.S. – lived in Germany for a few years.152 But he spoke Greek fluently- I lived in Cyprus, so I am able to judge this. When he realized that the door was open, he ordered for the door to be closed. A.K.N.: Two of the coastguards were very bad and the two others were sympathizing with us. The whole story was done by the two guys. All beatings were connected to these two guys. A.K.: And there was military staff on the island: Stavros, Katerina, Nikos- they are all good ones. The three treated us with respect, no wrong behaviour. They tried to help us. Especially Katerina, the medical staff. She wore a military uniform. She was very kind. She asked what kind of drugs people use or they need. She asked what we needed. I trusted her. She took care of the pregnant woman. She made a blood analysis and later told her that she needs vitamins. ‘You have minus vitamins’, she said. ‘You need vitamins’. R.: It had no windows, the door was closed and there was no cement on the ground. N.M.: At about 13 o clock they prepared food. It was a kind of rice and cheese. H.: The room was 10 x 5 meters big and there was an aluminium roof. There was a window covered with metal. There was no pavement and it smelled very bad. A.K.: It was half past nine in the morning-and the sun was already quite strong and we were 46 people inside this place. Men, women with kids and a baby were all sitting on the ground. No toilet. It was getting hot. It was so hot inside. Then they took the families with children outside. The others stayed locked inside. Sometimes the soldiers opened the door. A.: After we ate, people started vomiting. A.K.: The four guys that were beaten were still handcuffed – always kneeling or sitting in the sun. And we could hear somebody beating them. After two o’clock they were brought to a place with a little bit of shadow next to a car. The four guys tried to eat something. I had to feed them, because they remained handcuffed. When they tried the food, they did not want to eat any more. S.: Our nerves were destroyed. It was hot, there was the aluminium roof and there was no fresh air. What would you do? A.K.N.: The water they brought us to drink was brown. There was mud in it. The four of our group who were still outside noticed (from their voices and their appearance) the same officers from the boat who had just changed clothes. After one hour, these officers took their faces masks off. 152 | “They were speaking German with a strange accent.” E.S., from Syria in a telephone interview on August 26, 2013 / pushed back from Farmakonisi on 8.8.2013 46 | aNNEX-iNTERVIEWS aNNEX-iNTERVIEWS | 47