The Turkish coast guard attempted to stage a new provocation in Greek territorial waters near Vatos one of the rocky isles of the Oinousses cluster in the North Aegean Sea when two Greek fishermen were told to depart from the area by a Turkish coast guard boat. According to what the fishermen told protothema.gr, they were fishing about 100 metres off the coast of Vatos in their dinghy inside Greek territorial waters. Then a Turkish coastguard boat approached them and asked for their id papers in “fluent English”. “Initially, 1-2 minutes before the Turkish boat arrived, a Greek coastguard boat signalled to us to leave the area. However, it was too far away and we couldn’t understand”.

Anotnis Kontos, one of the two fishermen continues: “the inflatable boat, carrying armed men, approached us and in fluent English, asked us where we are from. We replied that we were Greeks. Then they spoke on their the radio and asked us to tie our boat to theirs and give them our ids. We believed they would take us with them. ” According to Kontos’s testimony, at that moment the Greek coastguard boat arrived on the scene and informed the Turkish coastguard the two men were only fishing.

Kontos said their adventure did not end there, as a little later a Turkish boat carrying immigrants sped towards them nearly capsizing their inflatable boat.

“Suddenly we saw another Turkish boat”, Kontos told prorothema.gr. “We feared that it would ram us, we turned back and hid behind the Greek coastguard boat.”

They then left and returned with the escort of the Greek boat to Chios where they had sailed from.