New testimonies have emerged from survivors of the deadly collision between a Coast Guard vessel and a migrant dinghy off the island of Chios that claimed 15 lives on February 3. The depositions, reported Friday by Kathimerini, were taken by a magistrate at the island hospital where injured passengers are being treated.
Two survivors, both hospitalized with serious injuries, were questioned on February 11. One man, who suffered fractures to his left arm and ribs, told the magistrate he did not see or hear any warning from the Coast Guard vessel before it struck their boat. “I didn’t see anything and I didn’t hear anything. Not to my left or right. If I had seen something, I would have told the captain to stop. I didn’t see how we crashed, but there was nothing around – it was dark,” he said.
When asked whether he realized they were being pursued, or if he heard sirens or saw lights, he replied: “None of that.” He also said he did not notice the white light described by other passengers, explaining he had been bent over in the boat holding his four-year-old child while wearing a hood. “And if there was a white light, it would have been for only a second or two,” he said.
Another survivor, a woman who suffered chest and abdominal injuries and lost her husband in the wreck, told the magistrate she could not recall the collision because she lost consciousness. She said she woke four days later in the hospital, initially searching for her mother, who had died three years earlier. She could only remember events up to the moment when a bus transported them to the Turkish coast.
Autopsy reports confirmed that all 15 victims suffered severe head injuries. Medical examiners cited causes of death including “severe cranial and brain injuries,” “severe cranial injuries with accompanying chest injuries,” and, in two cases, “severe cranial injuries and subsequent drowning.”
Moroccan suspect
A Moroccan man has been detained in connection with the incident after two survivors identified him as the boat’s driver. Five other survivors, however, told investigators they did not recognize him as a smuggler. The suspect denies the charges, saying he was a passenger and did not operate the vessel.
During hospital interviews, survivors were shown a photo of the detained man. The injured male survivor said he could not identify the driver, explaining he had been seated behind the masked captain and did not see the suspect either on the boat or during their time in Izmir. The hospitalized woman likewise said she could not recognize him, stating that the masked individuals who met them on the Turkish coast were only similar to the suspect in height.