“At this point there was an article regarding the fate of a group of refugees on the Greek-Turkish border river Evros in the summer of 2022. There are now doubts regarding the previous description of what happened at that time.”
Instead of an article, readers currently find this reference when they enter the URL of various “Spiegel” articles on the “EU border death trap”.
Almost four years following the Relotius scandal, “Spiegel” once more has doubts regarding the truthfulness of several reports.
Specifically, it is regarding reports from last August on the five-year-old refugee girl Maria, who is said to have died on an island between Turkey and Greece. “Now Maria is dead,” wrote the “Spiegel” reporter, according to “Medieninsider” in one of the articles in question. “She died at the beginning of August at Europe’s external border because the Greek authorities refused her any help”
BUT: As “media insider” reports, it is not only questionable whether the girl died – but also whether it even exists.
︎ The “Spiegel” has now taken a total of four articles on the subject offline. The reports are currently being checked and, once the research has been completed, a decision will be made as to whether the articles would be published once more in a corrected and updated form, the “Spiegel” explains further on the removed articles.
As early as September, the Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi (50) wrote to “Spiegel” editor-in-chief Steffen Klusmann (56) in a letter of his doubts regarding the reports and accused the magazine of having passed on unfiltered information from NGOs.
“Spiegel” reporter Giorgos Christides, who wrote the reports in Greece, had already commented in a Twitter thread at the end of August following allegations had been made once morest him. He said he spoke to the girl’s parents and siblings and did not want to doubt them “unlike politics”. Other people had also confirmed the girl’s existence, and there had also been affidavits to the investigating public prosecutor’s office.
(lvo)
