Widespread strikes in Greece coincided with protests coinciding with the first anniversary of the country’s worst rail disaster that killed 57 people, bringing trains, ferries and much of the capital’s public transport to a standstill on Wednesday.
The train accident on the night of February 28, 2023 shocked the nation. Many of the victims were university students on their way back to class after the holidays when a passenger train accidentally ran into the same track heading in the opposite direction, before colliding with an oncoming freight train.
Wednesday’s strike disrupted public transport in the capital Athens, with ferries stranded at the port. The move comes as trade unions demand a further rollback of wage controls imposed during Greece’s nearly decade-long financial crisis. There was no impact on aircraft as a court ruled that participation in the walkout by air traffic controllers was illegal. Farmers and university students have also been holding anti-government protests in recent weeks.
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Relatives of the victims gathered for a memorial service at the site of the train accident in Tempe, central Greece, on Wednesday morning as churches across the country rang their bells 57 times in memory of the dead.
“This is a pain that will never end, a wound that will never heal,” said Panos Rusi, whose 22-year-old son Dennis was killed.
Protesters demonstrate in Athens, Greece, February 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Balakras)
He said he supported a petition with hundreds of thousands of signatures calling for parliamentary immunity to be stripped from MPs responsible for railway safety in the event of a crash.
“What I want is for all of them, all those responsible everywhere hiding behind impunity, to be (punished),” he said.
Flowers and candles were placed at the scene of the train wreck, and a banner was hung that read, “Tempe’s Unpunished Crimes – Souls Demand Justice.”
Nikos Plakias, who lost his 19-year-old twin daughters and a niece in the crash, said: “I thought I was putting my children in the safest mode of transportation, but they ended up dying.” he said. Those responsible “knew of the problem but didn’t say anything.”
In the capital, demonstrators gathered outside parliament shouting “murderer, murderer”, while thousands of people holding flares and helium-filled red balloons stood outside the headquarters of the country’s railway operator. demonstrators gathered. Some people spray-painted the slogan “Our Lives” in front of a cordon of riot police with water cannons in the background.
The rally brought traffic to a standstill in much of the capital. Scuffles broke out between police and demonstrators in the capital, and similar protests broke out in the country’s second city, Thessaloniki, where riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades and threw paint, stones and petrol bombs. repulsed the demonstrators.
Protest organizers disputed government assurances that rail safety had been overhauled in the past 12 months.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement to mark the anniversary of the crash that the ongoing judicial inquiry into the crash has the government’s full support and cooperation.
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“On this sad anniversary, we bow our heads in remembrance of the 57 innocent people lost and the ordeal of those injured,” he said. “Our thoughts are with the families and they have the right to turn their pain into protest.”
