On Saturday, March 17 we witnessed a new tragedy in Agathonisi (a small Greek island near the borders with Turkey) where 16 refugees were drowned (among them 6 children and one infant), trying to cross the Aegean sea and reach the coasts of Greece.

This tragedy is not only a new list of drowned refugees, immigrants and their children. It is not one more picture in the media. We do not just feel sadness and anger. These developments create greater responsibility to continue the struggles against the imperialist atrocity.

The dead refugees and migrants “cry” that the tragedy of the uprooted victims will not end, imperialist wars and capitalist exploitation will not stop turning the Mediterranean into a water grave of the persecuted, unless we strengthen the organized struggle against the monopolies and their competitions, against NATO’s blood-stained plans, against the imperialist barbarism.

The EU-Greece-Turkey Agreements and the border guard mechanisms cannot and will not stop the wave of refugees and death, simply because they do not care about putting an end to the war, the abolition of the political persecutions and the elimination of the exploitation of the peoples.

We call on the trade unions, the Federations, the Regional Trade Union Centres, every worker and unemployed, to turn the rage into organized struggle against the causes that create the refugee phenomenon and immigration, to disengage our country from imperialist plans and wars.

PAME Secretariat of Refugees and Migrants