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Greece: Riots erupt in Athens, Thessaloniki on second anniversary of deadliest 2023 train accident


Clashes erupted in Athens and other parts of Greece on Friday as hundreds of thousands of Greeks protested on the second anniversary of the country’s deadliest train accident.

Thousands of protesters gathered at Athens’ Syntagma Square in front of the Greek Parliament, where they spray-painted the names of the dead in red on the ground.

Protesters hurled petrol bombs at police, set fire to trash cans, and clashed with the riot police in Athens.

In response, the riot police fired tear gas and water cannon at the protesters.

More than 80 people were detained and five were injured in Athens alone, authorities said.

On February 28, 2023, fifty-seven people were killed when a passenger train filled with students collided with a freight train in central Greece.

Blaming the government for the train accident and calling it a murder, the protesters said the government has not done anything to get justice.

In one of the biggest protests in Greece in years, public services and many private businesses were brought to a halt and people poured into the streets of cities and towns chanting “murderers” against what they say is the state’s role in the disaster.

However, the government has denied any wrongdoing.

Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki, also witnessed clashes, where a giant crowd choked the centre and people released black balloons into the sky in memory of the dead.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ centre-right government, which won re-election after the crash in 2023, has faced repeated criticism by relatives of the victims for failing to initiate a parliamentary inquiry into political responsibility.

The government said it is up to the judiciary to investigate the accident.

In a Facebook post on Friday, Mitsotakis said his government would work to modernise the railway network and make it safer.

“That night, we saw the ugliest face of the country in the national mirror,” he wrote of the night of the crash. “Fatal human errors met with chronic state inadequacies.”


Greece, Athens, Thessaloniki, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, train accident, Syntagma Square
#Greece #Riots #erupt #Athens #Thessaloniki #anniversary #deadliest #train #accident

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