The Pushback
It was a clear spring morning on the Greek island of Chios, and the waves pummeled the shoreline, whipping the Aegean into a froth. Antonis Bourmas’ house clung to the edge of a rocky point that faced eastward to Turkey, some 6 miles across the sea. As Bourmas prepared to leave for the school where he taught economics, he spotted something moving in the distance: a boat off the coast of Monolia beach, 200 yards to his north. Through his binoculars he saw that it was lurching toward shore and appeared to lack a working motor. A closer look confirmed his suspicions: This was a boat of refugees coming to seek asylum in Europe.
Bourmas, a trim intellectual with long hair and wire-rimmed glasses, grabbed a jacket and started to scramble down the path from his house toward the beach. He briefly lost sight of the boat, but he soon came across two men and a woman walking in his direction. The woman was carrying a baby and was young, maybe 20 years old, and dressed in jeans, a dark gray sweatshirt, white sneakers, and a black headscarf. She greeted him in English. They were from Syria, she told him, and they had come with 10 more people who remained back at the boat. Could he please help them?
Of course, Bourmas assured them. But back toward where he lived, he told them, there was nothing but houses. The best thing to do was turn back and walk toward the town of Agios Ioannis on the other end of the beach. There they’d find a small port building where they could shelter while waiting for the authorities to pick them up, register them, and take them to the nearby camp that housed and processed the island’s refugees—standard protocol for more than 100,000 refugees who had arrived in Chios since 2015.
“Don’t worry,” Bourmas said to the three Syrians. “You’re here now. You’re safe.” The woman nodded and began to cry. That’s the thing that haunts him most, he told me—the final words he spoke as he sent them on their way.
Bourmas then turned back toward home to call for help, as he’d promised. His cellphone wasn’t working properly, but he was able to get in touch with three friends and asked them to contact the Chios police right away. Each of them confirmed later that they had immediately called the authorities. Shortly thereafter, Bourmas looked back down to the shore. The refugees were gone, but police had arrived at the boat and seemed to be inspecting it. Surely they’d convey the group to safety so they could begin their asylum process.
That’s what he assumed. But then, a few days later, he saw a news report about one of the Turkish Coast Guard’s recent sea rescues. In it, a group of officers clad in diving gear and steering a pontoon boat approached a barren, rocky island in the middle of Turkish waters, where at least 10 refugees stood waiting. There was no boat or remains of a boat on the coastline. How the refugees had gotten to this windswept island, and why, wasn’t clear.
And then Bourmas saw her: the
