Although the Pink-Georgiou case was not one of a traditional summer romance gone tragically wrong, all round the Mediterranean there is a growing danger of AIDS infection as a result of a brief and thoughtless fling, writes Michael Jansen.Yesterday, the Cyprus government published its monthly statistics on the incidence of AIDS in the south of the island. There are 271 AIDS cases and HIV carriers in Cyprus; three new cases were discovered in July. Of these, 158 of those infected are Cypriots and 134 of them males.
One of the four HIV-positive children is the son of Pavlos Georgiou - sentenced yesterday for giving the AIDS virus to his lover. Of the infected males, 80 per cent are between the ages of 20 to 40.
This is precisely the age group of the men known in Greek as kamaki, or sharks, who cruise the beaches, bars and cafes in search of female company: fishermen and boatmen, waiters, barmen, taxi drivers, bus-boys, house painters, farm labourers, students and off-duty soldiers.
Some of these amateur gigolos have venereal disease, others rape or batter their pick-ups. In Cyprus many court cases follow evenings of convivial drinking in a seaside bar. This phenomenon is found across the Green Line in the Turkish-Cypriot north, on the Turkish mainland, in Greece, where kamaki are particularly active on the islands, in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, in southern France and Italy.