Danish Defence Minister Trine Bramsen had no qualms about the Danish mission disobeying an order to push back a boat full of migrants, adding that they “solved the task based on the mandate they were given”.
A Danish boat that monitored the Aegean Sea as part of Operation Poseidon, a border control mission to support Greece, coordinated by Frontex, refused to send back migrants they picked up from the sea, Danish officials told Danish Radio.
Operation leader Jens Møller of the Danish Police told Danish Radio that they had picked up 33 migrants who went to Greece in a rubber boat when they received orders from Poseidon headquarters to send them back outside Greece's waters.
The Danes refused to obey the order, which they called “controversial” and “life-threatening”. The inflatable boat, according to a crew member, was not in “seaworthy condition”.
“The captain thought it was not justifiable”, Møller told Danish Radio.
The migrants were taken to the Greek island of Kos. Several of the crew members said that the rules of good seamanship dictate the obligation to help people at sea.
According to Navy Captain Jan Niegsch, it is risky to stop a rubber boat by force. By his own admission, such a situation can end up as a sea rescue.
The Danish sailors said that they had seen episodes when Greek patrol boats sail close to the overcrowded inflatable boats to turn them around in so-called “pushbacks” or “turnbacks”, which they see as risky behaviour….
