Syrian migrants recount the circumstances of their kidnapping and torture in Greece

BY|orient-news

The United Rescue Group revealed details of a group of Syrian migrants being kidnapped, robbed and blackmailed in Greece by smugglers before the Greek police intervened to release them.

The group concerned with following up the news of migrants and providing them with assistance said that the Greek police succeeded in rescuing a number of kidnapped Syrian migrants after providing them with information about them.

The group added that last Saturday evening, it received a call from a family of immigrants who said that a group of smugglers had kidnapped their sons in Thessaloniki, and had sent them recordings showing their torture in order to blackmail them.

She added that the smugglers sent the families recordings showing the torture of their children and demanded sums of money as ransom in exchange for their release, before the group reported to the Greek police, who in turn raided their place of detention and released them.

The group published a recording showing part of the kidnappers’ assault on the migrants by beating, abusing them, insulting them in the worst terms and threatening the worst unless their relatives paid the money.
The recording also included testimonies from the victims after their liberation, talking about the circumstances of what happened to them and the attempts to blackmail them by smugglers.

During those recordings, one of them said that after they arrived at a house used by smugglers in Thessaloniki, the owner of the residence asked them to crack the code so that the smuggler could get the money, but the broker took the money and started torturing the migrants to compensate for his loss.
One of the witnesses added that the smugglers stole their mobile phones and asked them to send distress calls to their families to send more money. They also used the Afghan immigrants to beat and abuse them to photograph them and blackmail the people.
According to the witness, an armed group raided the place and released them, only to be found out later to be a force of the Greek police. After their liberation, the Greek authorities gave them papers authorizing them to roam the country.

And in late October, the Rescue Cell published another video clip of Syrian migrants who were kidnapped by gangs in Greece, demanding their families to pay a ransom for their release. In a Facebook post, it indicated that a gang kidnapped a woman with two children in Thessaloniki, and began torturing them and threatening the mother to kill her children. In case you did not pay the amount of 10 thousand euros.

She indicated that she informed the Greek authorities about the case and gave them the gang’s residence location with the phone numbers of the kidnappers, where a group of three men and an 18-year-old girl were arrested and the search is underway for four others who were part of the group.
She explained that during the raid on the house, it was found that a woman, two children and 3 other young men were kidnapped and tortured in order to pay a ransom in exchange for their release. The authorities also found money, mobile phones, bank cards and weapons.
Migrants, while trying to cross European borders, are exposed to many dangers, including kidnapping gangs linked to smugglers and European shadow armies that hunt for them, as well as the risks of drowning, detention and fraud.