Greece. August 2009. Island of Samos.
Greek Guards coast patrols on Aegean sea where illigal immigrants try to cross the border coming from Kusadasi, on the turkish side.
They want to arrive in Europe where they can ask for asylum and make a new life. Most of them come from Afghanistan, Irak, Iran, East Europe, Algeria, Marocco, Palestine. Quite a lot pretend to be Afghanistan or palestinians in order to get a chance to become protected by a refugee or a political statut but are in fact from Pakistan, Algeria or Marocco.
They usually pay to the traffickers between 1000 and 2000 dollars, depending if one of htem wiil accompanie the migrants or not. Police arrested the past year in 2008 around 2700 illegal immigrants in Samos and 80000 in whole Greece.

Here, 18 migrants are found at 5:20am. One coast guard is aiming a rifle on them as criminals and shout: "Hands up! Don't touch the boat!" as they often try to cut it in order to oblige the coast guards to save them from sinking and be sure that they won't be sent back to the Turks.
They are claiming they are "Afghanis" in order to get the international statut of refugees and protection. One of the guard coast shouted to them as an answer: "If you are afghanis, I am swedish!"
They will be arrested by the Police, finger digital printed and sent to the detention center of Samos.