Greece's Ministry of Maritime Affairs has ordered every official working on the country's southern frontier to pass a open-water swimming examination before resuming duty, after a second boat carrying migrants sank off the island of Crete within three days. The rule applies to coast guard officers, port inspectors, reception-centre staff and, according to a ministry circular, the drivers of senior officials.
The examination takes place in the harbour at Chania and requires candidates to tow a fully clothed instructor for four hundred metres, tread water for twenty minutes and locate a mannequin on the seabed at a depth of nine metres. Officers who fail are reassigned to desks in Athens until they pass. A ministry spokesperson said that since the programme began on Monday, the coastline has seen its first queue of inspectors waiting at dawn for their turn in the water.
Port authorities on Crete have already converted a disused fish market into a training pool, and a local shipyard has been contracted to build a floating rescue platform in every bay where boats are known to land. "We cannot ask a man to save a drowning person if he cannot first save himself," the ministry's director of coastal operations told reporters, standing beside a pool filled with sixty staff in orange life jackets.
Next week the programme is to extend to the Aegean islands, where officials say the entire customs service will be required to sit the same test. Ministry staff have been told to keep their swimming caps on during meetings.