In Purgatory: Turkish Migrants’ Dance With Tragedy in Northern Greece

A group of Turkish migrants barely escaped tragedy on the Turkish-Greek border after a social media campaign. But others are not that lucky amid increasing Greek pushbacks of refugees.

A video message shot by a group of Turkish migrants, who had recently crossed the Greek border after fleeing political persecution in Turkey, forewarned of an impending disaster: freezing to death in a no man’s land unless authorities reach them as quickly as possible. In a direct plea to the international community, a Turkish man evidently expressed the peril that awaited them after showing their pitiful situation on the first day of December.

They were lucky. A social media blitz by people who closely monitor the border crossings between Turkey and Greece after the democratic breakdown in the former spurred recalcitrant Greek border police into action. The group involving women and children was taken to a safe place by the Greek security forces, we are told later.