Chios: two people in the sea from a jet ski

In the morning hours of Wednesday 19 August the Chios Port Authority was informed about a personal watercraft, known as a jet ski, which was moving at high speed from the Turkish coast opposite towards the area of Agia Ermioni - Neniton, on the east of the island. According to the announcement by the Hellenic Coast Guard, two patrol vessels sailed immediately and during the search located a man and a woman swimming while wearing lifejackets. The two people were picked up unharmed, taken to the port of Chios and then to the island’s Reception and Identification Centre, where the prescribed procedures follow.

According to their own statement, as recorded in the announcement, the operator of the craft threw them into the sea and then returned to the coast opposite. A preliminary investigation into the case is being carried out by the Chios Central Port Authority, which will look into the circumstances of the transport and the identity of the operator. The announcement does not attribute a nationality to the two people picked up, nor does it give details about the operator of the watercraft, who has not been identified. The relevant file will be judged by the competent judicial authorities, should evidence emerge that allows identification.

The use of high-speed personal watercraft has been recorded in recent years as a method of people smuggling in the narrow passages of the eastern Aegean, where the distance from the coast opposite is measured in a few nautical miles. The advantage for the smugglers is the speed and the small radar signature, but the risk for the people being transported is disproportionately great. These are craft with no protection at all, without means of communication and with very little stability in a swell, while the practice of abandoning passengers in the water, as described in this particular case, turns any mishap into a matter of life and death. Survival then depends solely on how quickly they are located and on the state of the sea.

The incident is part of a set of operations recorded in the same Coast Guard bulletin for the same day in different parts of the country. For Chios, the open questions are the completion of the preliminary investigation and the documentation of the craft’s route, while it has not been made known whether assistance will be sought from the authorities opposite. The island is permanently in the front line of such incidents because of geography, with the local services shouldering rescue, identification and accommodation at the same time. At the Reception and Identification Centre the recording of details, the medical check and the briefing on the asylum procedure follow, stages provided for every person located in this way. The two people picked up are not being treated as suspects in the smuggling, as the preliminary investigation concerns the operator of the watercraft. Developments in shipping and in maritime surveillance of the Aegean remain decisive for the society of the eastern Aegean islands.