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Officials Report on Farmakonisi Incident

farmakonisi2The director of the Greek Port Operations Centre Nikolaos Patrinos, described the unfortunate circumstances during the rescue operation of immigrants which led to tragedy in Farmakonisi, Greece.
Officials presented the events of the operations frame by frame, insisting that the reactions of the captain who rushed to the spot were “nautically appropriate.” However, the weather conditions were rather treacherous, the state of the fishing boat transporting the migrants was in poor condition, one of the migrants created a fuss that provoked chaos between the other migrants and a sudden fire broke out on the fishing boat.
Mr. Patrinos stated that the Coast Guard was alerted on the incident at 1:35 am. He also mentioned that the Beaufort wind force was about 6-7. After the coast Guard was informed of the situation, officials set out on a floating boat reaching a distance of 3.5 miles from the fishing boat, where they discovered that there was a sufficient number of people on board. The boat’s navigation lights were off and it was within Greek territorial waters. After the relevant office was informed of the situation, the fishing boat received the order to return to Farmakonisi and within a few minutes, the fishing boat reached the Farmakonisi coast.
Two officials jumped onto the boat as instructed, holding the tow rope that began with delicate handling. Men of the Hellenic Coast Guard (HCG) asked how many people were aboard but they only got vague answers; at first 15, then 16 and eventually 18 people.
Mr. Patrinos continues his description saying that the towing had started when something odd happened. The leader of the fishing boat was alerted by two officials that the towline was breaking. They immediately tried to get the tow rope up. An engineer got on board to continue the towing procedure. At that time, a migrant was talking on the phone. They heard voices and the man on the phone was pointing to the sea. Suddenly, everyone moved to the right causing the fishing boat to shift. After the leader’s maneuver, the boat started tipping to the right with everyone on the platform. A child fell into the sea but was rescued.  Five minutes later, smoke began coming out of the boat but the leader had no idea what the source of the fire was. It seemed likely that it was the engine room but it was difficult to tell since people were sitting on the engine. At this point they needed to leave, so they cut the rope connecting them to the assisting boat, after which the fishing boat started to sink.
The chief of the HCG, Dimitris Bantias, stated how deeply sorry he is for the Farmakonisi incident where 12 people lost their lives, 9 of which were children.

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