eKathimerini — Seventeen Turkish citizens landed on the shores of the Greek island of Oinousses in the eastern Aegean on Monday afternoon and requested asylum, the country’s coast guard has announced.
The majority are said to be civil servants and the group has been transferred to the Vial migrant center on Chios, where they will be registered and processed.
The group told the coast guard officers who took them in after they landed on a beach in a small rubber dinghy that they feared persecution in Turkey, as they were civil servants and judicial officials.
More than 1,800 Turks have requested asylum in Greece since a botched coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the summer of 2015.
These include eight servicemen who stand accused of treason in Turkey and have been the subject of diplomatic tension between the two countries.
