Imagine being loaded onto a small boat with 58 other people and then cast adrift in the dark of night. Then imagine the immense sense of relief you would experience when you came across the coast guard, your escape from Syria almost complete.

There’s a third part to this story though, one that may make this man on board a Greek coastguard boat one of the most heartless humans walking the earth. Move over Hungarian camerawoman who kicked immigrants for a better shot, I think you’ve been trumped.

This below comes from the Independent:

The footage was reportedly captured by the Turkish coastguard on 12 November, and shows a small boat with up to 60 people on board screaming for help in dark on the Aegean Sea.

According to Reuters, the footage was released by the Turkish government this week and a complaint has been issued to Greek officials.

In the video, a man who appears to be a member of the Greek coastguard can be seen in an apparent attempt to pierce the side of the inflatable refugee boat.

As the vessel starts to sink, the Greek boat sails away, leaving the Turkish coastguard to rescue the drowning refugees. They were then taken back to the Turkish port city of Didim, the starting point for many trying to cross the Aegean into Europe.

In a message to his Greek counterpart, Commander Rear Admiral Hakan Ustem of the Turkish coastguard said: “We would be very pleased if you order your team to refrain from such acts.”

Disagreeing with allowing immigrants the shot at a better life in your country isn’t illegal, attempting to drown them is. Greece has denied the allegations, releasing a statement covered here by RT:

“The Headquarters of the Hellenic Coast Guard categorically denies reports in the foreign press and altered audiovisual material on a foreign website, according to which a vessel of the Hellenic Coast Guard is allegedly attempting to sink a boat with refugees,” a statement read.

The statement added that both the Greek and Turkish coastguards were assisting one another in trying to rescue the dinghy, which was packed with refugees…

“The Hellenic Coast Guard also categorically denies that talks took place between the heads of the two coastguards of Greece and Turkey as presented in reports in the Turkish press,” the Greek coastguard said in the statement.

It seems odd that the Turkish government would lodge a complaint with Greece over a joint effort to rescue refugees. Someone is talking shite, and we know from previous reports that these kind of acts have been seen before:

A damning Human Rights Watch report in October said that armed masked men from around the Greek islands have been targeting migrant boats and turning them back, sometimes throwing their engines away.

Two incidents are reported to have taken place on October 7 and 9, respectively, when attackers allegedly disabled the engines of several boats and even punctured holes in their inflatable hulls. Some of the inflatable rafts were towed back into Turkish waters.

There is no easy fix to the greatest migrant crisis the world has seen since World War II, but surely we as humans can do better than this?

[sources:independent&rt]