Agencies
Athens
Tens of thousands of protesters have rallied outside Greece’s parliament in Athens to demand justice for the victims of the country’s worst railway disaster nearly two years ago.
Sunday’s demonstration, one of the biggest to be held in the capital in recent years, came days after local media released an audio recording suggesting that some of the 57 victims might have survived the collision but died in a fire of yet unknown origin that burned for more than an hour following the crash.
Protests were also held in dozens of other cities in Greece and abroad, with participants rallying under the “I have no oxygen” slogan, which echoed a woman’s last words in a call to emergency services.
Attendees in Athens held banners reading “We won’t forget” while chants of “Murderers, murderers” reverberated around Syntagma Square.
A judicial investigation is still in progress over the collision of a freight train and a passenger train packed with students near Tempe, outside the city of Larissa, just before midnight on February 28, 2023.
The crash, on a line linking Athens with Greece’s second-largest city Thessaloniki, triggered angry protests across the country, where it was seen as the result of widespread neglect of the railways after a decade-long financial crisis. Two years later, the cause of death of many of the victims has not been determined as their families have accused authorities of trying to cover up evidence.
