The 66-year-old was honoured last night three weeks after the dramatic events on the island, in a ceremony at the ministry of maritime affairs in Athens.
In a ceremony officiated by the Greek Minister of Maritime Affairs, Giannis Plakiotakis, Protopsaltis alongside others who were involved in the search and rescue operation, received awards from the Ministry of Maritime Affairs.
“What we witnessed that night was hellish, absolutely frightful, something I never thought I would ever see,” Protopsaltis told the Guardian. The sea was howling, the wind was howling, the waves were just so big and all these people down there in that rocky cove, trying to keep steady, trying somehow to get into the bag, sometimes two at a time but mostly one at a time, so the crane could lift them to the top.”
“Neither I, nor anyone else who was there, and there must have been around 100 of us, thought twice,” he said, adding that with the aid of ropes at least 20 had also survived. “Nobody forced us to help. All this talk about Greeks letting migrants die in the sea has infuriated me because it’s not true.”
The International Greek media has been hailing the heroism of a man who could easily have chosen not to act when the yacht – a vessel with a maximum passenger capacity of 15 but carrying 95 people – ran aground off Diakofti, Kythira’s main port. Even his sisters in Sydney – for no Greek isle has seen more of its community migrate to Australia than Kythira – have been in touch to say they have seen him on CNN.
Only now, Protopsaltis concedes, has the “significance and value” of what he, and his fellow Kythirians achieved, hit home. “All this talk about heroism is overblown. What we did was only human. In Kythira we always help people in need. From America and Argentina to South Africa and Australia there are Kytherians and, so, all of us have lived the experience of migration. I don’t know what has been happening further afield [in Greece] but we’d never let people drown.”
On Sunday, he received a congratulatory call from Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Mitsotakis congratulated and thanked him for his efforts, emphasizing that Greeks will continue to save human lives placed at risk by ruthless human trafficking networks.
Most migrants who make it to Greece travel from neighboring Turkey. People smugglers have changed routes in recent months in an attempt to avoid heavily patrolled waters around Greek islands.
Read More https://greekcitytimes.com/2022/10/11/greek-hero-who-helped-save-80-people-at-kythera-greece/
