On picturesque, bushfire-ravaged Greek lands close to the border with Turkey, a mass of charred corpses lie among the many ashes of what was as soon as a verdant forest that offered migrants the proper cowl to cross into the European Union. Amongst these killed had been two kids.
The our bodies of what had been presupposed to be a gaggle of migrants had been discovered close to the village of Avantas in northeastern Greece, which was engulfed by a ferocious forest fireplace with devastating pace. The hearth was one in all lots of raging throughout the nation, fueled by excessive temperatures and powerful winds.
A bunch of seven or eight our bodies had been discovered all collectively and it appeared that the house owners had been embracing one another for the final time. Others had been buried beneath the rubble of a bunker destroyed by the fireplace.
“They realized on the final second that the tip was coming… It was a determined try to guard themselves,” mentioned Pavlos Pavlides, a forensic physician who was summoned to the scene on Tuesday to look at the our bodies, which had been burnt past recognition.
Simply over two months after lots of of migrants drowned at sea off Greece making an attempt to succeed in Europe from Libya, one other group was stopped, taking what appeared to be a safer route, not due to a rickety boat however moderately the drive of nature.
Satellite tv for pc pictures taken earlier than and after the bushfires present the devastation alongside a route well-liked with migrants from the Center East and Asia.
The forest earlier than and after the fireplace
Swamps of inexperienced areas have became a lunar wasteland, and timber have became sticks of charcoal. The implant that was supposed to guard the migrants throughout their escape from the Greek police became a lethal entice.
The one coloured object discovered within the space the place the our bodies had been discovered had been two blue medical gloves that the investigators had left behind.
Within the early days of the fireplace, Avantas mayor George Hatzigeorgiou mentioned he noticed three teams of migrants within the space.
And he added, “There was a lady with a baby, and the girl was carrying a headband, and the fireplace was 100 meters away.”
He added, “I begged them in English to go to the village sq.. They stored saying: Police, police! They had been afraid of being arrested… I instructed them it’s higher to go to the sq. and be arrested than to be burned alive.”
The individuals who died within the forest are believed to be among the many 1000’s who cross from Turkey into Greece every year throughout the Evros River, which demarcates a lot of the land border between the 2 nations.
UN knowledge reveals that of the 18,700 individuals who arrived in Greece final 12 months, a 3rd got here by land. About 4,000 folks have crossed the river this 12 months, and Greek police say their quantity elevated barely in August.
Hatzigeorgiou mentioned he typically discovered purses and backpacks containing sums of Turkish lira or drugs packages written in Turkish mendacity across the village after folks removed them throughout their journey.
“We have been seeing these folks for a few years, nearly day by day… I’ve discovered lots of of this stuff,” he added.
Human rights teams and the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) accuse Greece of mistreating folks on the border and typically forcibly returning them to Turkey.
Adriana Tidona, Amnesty Worldwide’s migration researcher, mentioned in a press release after the our bodies had been found that the Greek authorities “are systematically responding with unlawful pushbacks at borders, with denial of the best to hunt asylum and with violence”.
Greece denies the accusations and says its “strict and truthful” immigration coverage protects the EU’s borders.
Pavlidis collected DNA samples from the our bodies on the morgue, the one manner the identities of the our bodies could be established. “You possibly can’t see their faces, you possibly can’t see something,” he mentioned. Solely two hours and two rings had been left with the our bodies.
Fires are nonetheless burning within the space, and Hatzigeorgiou fears that extra our bodies shall be discovered within the forest. “For me, that is nearly sure,” he added.
No Comments