Greek coastguard. Our boat’s engine stopped and we couldn’t restart it. They came closer. (...) They called somewhere and we could tell that they were saying something about Syrians. They didn’t allow us to go to the Greek island. We all insisted that we would not leave and they bumped into our boat. Then they started shooting into the water and over our heads, in order to scare us and make us return back. They were wearing full-face masks. They approached us with a big boat, but they had a dinghy too and those who were on the dinghy wore full-face masks and were the ones who were shooting. The big boat stopped in front of us. The small boat attacked us from the other side. As we were being pushed back onto the big boat, we almost fell into the water. There were babies with us and there was a pregnant woman. Some people lifted their babies up in the air. The Greeks took us with our boat from Greece and pulled us back. (…) The Turkish took us in a camp (prison) where we stayed for 14 days. There were also other children on the boat, six small kids and some babies. Figure 1: Reconstruction of the place, as the interviewee drew it for PRO ASYL. [1] ‘There was a new building, it seemed new. We didn’t go inside.’ [2] ‘There were small dinghies parked there.’ [3] The place where they body searched them by taking their clothes off. [4] The place with the table, where they were asked to leave their mobiles and money. [5] Where people were waiting. [6] There was a 2mt high wall [7] from where they entered. M.: When we said we would not leave, the police came and they aimed a gun with a red light at my sister. I was so afraid. I fainted and fell. Everyone started screaming. The Greeks hit our boat with their vessel. As they started going in circles around our boat, water was splashing and our rubber boat was getting filled with water. Someone knew how to say ‘help’ in Greek, he told us to say this word. We all started saying this word and the police told us ‘no, no go back!’ A.: We told them we were Syrians and that we are refugees and that we wanted to seek asylum and they told us they didn’t believe us. M.: One of us put fuel in his mouth and threatened to set himself on fire, if they wouldn’t let us get to the Greek coast. Pushing back Particularly Vulnerable People A.: (…) The Greek police aimed their guns at a girl and at me and then started shooting in the water. The pregnant woman fainted. • Unaccompanied minors A. (16 years old), M. (14 years old) and J. (9 years old), from Syria (three unaccompanied minors with another underage brother)161/ pushed back from the Aegean in November 2012 A.: We were 24 people in the boat, from Sudan, Syria, Iran and Morocco. We had almost arrived on the island, when the coastguard suddenly arrived with their vessel. It was the J.: I was scared and I was crying and I saw my brother who was asking for water and the police officer then shot in the water. He was feeling dizzy and almost fainted. M.: We were feeling sick. I wanted to vomit; I was feeling dizzy and was very afraid. We were scared, as we had never seen such things before. A woman was so scared and she wanted to jump into the sea. The others stopped her. Some others were trying to open holes in the boat with A.’s hairpin, but they couldn’t. When I saw that, I thought we were going to die. 161 | Interviewed in Athens (Greece), June 22, 2013 58 | aNNEX-iNTERVIEWS aNNEX-iNTERVIEWS | 59