Tens of thousands of demonstrators in Greece on Sunday demanded justice for the 57 victims of the country’s deadliest railway disaster in 2023.
Nicosia was one of 130 places around the world where demonstrations took place on Sunday. In Athens, Thessaloniki and other places in Greece, as well as in London, Amsterdam, Brussels and Barcelona people also gathered for protests.
The central Syntagma Square in Athens was filled with demonstrators, people gathered at the Arch of Galerius in Thessaloniki, as well as in other cities and centres across Greece. The demonstrations were held under the slogan “I have no oxygen,” which echoed one woman’s last words in a call to emergency services.
Participants “demand justice”
Participants held placards with the names and ages of the 57 people who died in the deadliest railway accident in Greek history. Others held banners demanding justice and pictures of two Cypriots, Kyprianos Papayannou and Anastasia Adamidou, who died in the incident.
The demonstration passed a resolution saying the participants “came to honour the memory of the victims and demand justice.” The resolution also said:
“The tragedy in Tempi was not an accident. It was a crime born of indifference, irresponsibility and corruption – a crime that must not go unpunished.”
It also noted that “it is unacceptable that 30 survivors of the fatal encounter were burnt alive because of an illegal chemical cargo that no one bothered to check.”
The resolution therefore called for an immediate and independent investigation into the post-crash explosion, adding that “explanations are also required from the agencies before they take any other position that will allow them to continue to pursue a policy of cover-up.” The resolution said:
“Today, in every corner of the planet where there are Greeks, people are saying, “Enough is enough, we no longer have the oxygen to continue to tolerate crimes without punishment.” We no longer have room for silence and complicity.”
It also noted that the struggle being waged by the protesters “is not only for the dead, but also for the living who deserve a better future and for the children who should not grow up in a country where human life has less value than profit.”
Horrible tragedy
The railway disaster occurred on the main line between Athens and Thessaloniki. A passenger train collided head-on with a goods train, causing entire carriages to derail.
The trains were engulfed in flames, with temperatures reaching 1,300 degrees Celsius, with some passengers thrown 40 metres from the point of impact. After the disaster, Greece and then Cyprus declared three days of mourning.
Last week, an expert report found that the goods train was carrying 10 tonnes of flammable aromatic hydrocarbons and that it was the explosion of this flammable liquid that caused the deaths of the 30 people who survived the initial impact.
