Greece. August 2009. Island of Samos.
Greek coast guards patrol the Aegean sea where illegal immigrants try to cross the border coming from Kusadasi on the Turkish side.
They want to arrive in Europe where they can ask for asylum and make a new life. Most of them come from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Eastern Europe, Algeria, Morocco or Palestine.
The migrants usually pay traffickers between 1000 and 2000 dollars, depending if one of them will go with the migrants or not. In 2008 police arrested around 2700 illegal immigrants in Samos alone and 80000 in all of Greece.
Here, 18 migrants are found at 5:20am. One coast guard is drawing a rifle on them as if they were criminals and shouts: "Hands up! Don't touch the boat!" Migrants often try to cut their dinghy so that the coast guards are forced to save them from sinking. In this way they are sure that they won't be sent back to Turkey.
They are claiming they are "Afghans" in order to get the international status of refugees and protection. One of the guard coast shouted back: "If you are Afghans, I am Swedish!"
They will be arrested by police, their fingerprints taken and sent to the detention center on Samos.