Greek firefighters are fighting Wednesday, for the fifth consecutive day and on multiple fronts, fires that have already killed at least twenty people, mostly migrants, and cover Athens with thick black smoke.
Nineteen suspected migrants, including two children according to police, are among the dead. Rumors on social networks incriminate migrants for the start of fires, the origin of which is still undetermined.
A fire devours the foothills of Mount Parnes (Parnitha in Greek), the second of the three hills that surround Athens and where the largest forest near the Greek capital is located, a national park.
“The situation in Parnitha is extremely critical,” Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias told a press conference. “It’s unprecedented, and that’s not a way to put it.”
On Wednesday morning, evacuation orders were issued for new neighborhoods where three retirement homes are located, in Menidi in the Athens suburbs.
The flames reached the first houses of Menidi, not far from a military field. They also destroyed homes and property in the nearby suburbs of Hasia and Fyli.
“A lot of people refuse to leave their homes,” complained Nikos Kountromichalis, a member of the Greek Red Cross, on public television ERT.
“We found elderly people who had fainted in their yard,” added the official who was in Menidi, adding that the Red Cross had taken care of several people for burns and respiratory distress.
The detention center for migrants in Amygdaleza, 25 km north of Athens, had to be evacuated.
Greek firefighters have had to fight 350 fires in the past five days, including 200 that broke out in the past 48 hours, Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias told a press conference.
“I have never seen anything in such extreme conditions in 32 years of service,” said Greek fire chief Yiorgos Pournaras, saying the Mount Parnes fire spread even as bombers from water had been on the spot within minutes.
The Greek capital woke up on Wednesday suffocating to the smell of burning, thick black smoke obscuring the sky.
“Unfortunately, the wind is not helping us at all,” Menidi deputy mayor Stathis Topalidis told state television ERT.
On Tuesday, civil protection ordered the evacuation of the Ano Liosia district, populated by some 25,000 people and located in the northwest of Athens near Fyli. Residents, however, stayed at home to try to protect their homes.
“The conditions remain difficult and, in many cases, extreme,” commented Yannis Artopios, the spokesperson for the Greek fire service.
Another fire was still raging at a landfill in an industrial area of ??Aspropyrgos west of Athens. A nearby neighborhood had to be evacuated Wednesday morning.
In the northeast of the country, near the border with Turkey in the Evros river region, two fires remained out of control near the port city of Alexandroupoli and in the forest of Dadia, threatening the national park of the same name. home to rare birds of prey.
New evacuation orders were given in this region during the night.
On Tuesday, 18 suspected migrants – including two children according to police – were found dead near the Tuque border, north of Alexandroupoli.
“The places where the fires broke out, in the Dadia forest, are places of passage for migrants,” Valantis Gialamas, head of border guards in Evros prefecture, told AFP. “I think we might find more bodies when the fire is out and autopsies can be done.”
A police officer, who asked to remain anonymous, added: “I’m sure there will be more deaths as the fire progresses in places which are places of passage and hiding places”.
Rumors are rife on social networks accusing migrants. Three people were arrested on Tuesday in the north of the country after forcing undocumented migrants into a truck trailer, accusing them of setting fires. These three people had posted a video of their act on social networks calling on people to imitate them.
Greece’s Supreme Court prosecutor on Wednesday ordered the local prosecutor’s office to investigate the causes of the fires and accusations of racism.
The flames are also still raging in the islands of Euboea and Kythnos in the Aegean Sea, in Boeotia north of Athens and in the west of the country. Another fire that broke out on the island of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea on Tuesday was contained overnight, but the island remains without electricity.
More than 40,000 hectares were destroyed by the fires in three days, from August 19 to 21, according to a report by the National Observatory of Athens.
08/23/2023 17:38:01 – Athens (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
