Dimitra Katsoridou opened the cycle of depositions. He was at sea for 6 hours. Rescued by a fishing boat at 11pm.
“I drove out at around 18:30 and saw two trees on fire. I decided to go to the sea. From 7 o’clock they knew at the port that there were people in the sea. Around me there were 700 to 1,000 people in the sea. They were all the ones who knew from the old days that if something happened, we had to go to sea. From 7:20 to 10:30 the night I saw the fishing boat that rescued us, there was no Coast Guard boat. There was darkness and fear. When the boat took us to Rafina, a port guard came and asked me to tell her my name “clearly”. I told her “you are running out of efforts to delete me from the missing persons list”. A few days later, when I called the harbormaster to tell me the details of the fishing boat that saved us, the harbormaster said to me: “Good morning! I hope you consider that we contributed to your rescue.” I answered him: “How did you contribute?”, He told me that “we couldn’t come, because we would be harvesting heads”. I asked him “do you mean the ships were big?” and he answered me positively. I asked him “did you inform Piraeus to meet you with smaller boats?”, he answered “yes”.
Next came the widow of Pavlos Charbous, who was found charred inside his car.
“Our own state declared war on us… We were running in panic. Apart from our lost people, so many burn victims are still suffering. With thrown flesh they swam for hours. They struggled in the waves with their flesh burned. Where do we live? We are in the capital of our country. Mercy,” said the deceased’s widow.
The son and daughter of Pavlos Charbous asked the court to find out who is responsible for the unjust death of their father.
“My brother had no information. He voluntarily tried to save himself and his children,” said the sister of Grigoris Fitrou, who was burned together with his two minor children.
“The escape route became a death trap for my brother and his children. My niece was found in the void. In the Franko estate, my brother, his son and so many other people… The tragic irony is that the material goods, the house, everything, remained intact… The souls were lost”.
Fire in the Eye: Six years later, no one forgets the national tragedy
At 18:30, at the Memorial of the Victims in Neo Voutza, a trisayo was held, with the Invocation of the 104 dead.
“Anyone who wishes can place a flower in their memory,” they said in the announcement. The march of everyone followed, from the Monument, on the road of fire, to the N.A.O.M.A. in the eye. At 20:00, the main event and triathlon was held at the Naval Sports Club in Mati (N.A.O.M.A.).
In her speech, a victim’s relative shocked with what she said: “Have we understood how torturously our dead were burned? Have we asked our burn victims directly what they experienced? These people are the only living proofs of what our dead also experienced, of what they saw before them. No, we haven’t asked so as not to spoil the comforting narrative of our mind, that they didn’t have time to understand anything, they understood everything and they were alone. And unfortunately for some, some survived to be able to tell what happened. We want to share this truth. And let every Greek and every European learn it with us. Our pain, as the years go by, deepens but becomes more muted.”
At 21:00, walking from N.A.O.M.A. to the martyred Argyra Akti, 104 floating lanterns and flowers were left in memory of the victims and white balloons for Evita and the 11 children, who did not have time to grow up. In Argyra Akti, at the union of the two Municipalities, Marathonos and Rafina-Pikermiou, the event started by the daughter of a victim will also take place.
“To travel them in memory of the people who drowned, in memory of the people who waited in the water with their flesh burning for help that came too late, of the people who cooled by the water, of the people who never reached the water, of the of people who were trapped and had no water”.
(THANASIS DIMOPOULOS/EUROKINISSI)
(THANASIS DIMOPOULOS/EUROKINISSI)
(THANASIS DIMOPOULOS/EUROKINISSI)
(THANASIS DIMOPOULOS/EUROKINISSI)
Tragedy in Mati: 6 years later, justice was “buried” in the ashes – The survivor’s complaint is shocking [βίντεο]
Mrs. Katerina Malla, a survivor, spoke to OPEN and the Greek Hour show about what happened, what followed while making a serious complaint about the head of the Fire Department who had mishandled a corpse and remained in his position.
According to her, this person was removed when he made a mistake in the investigation of the case with the fire in Hydra.
Mati: “We have been fighting for the truth for 6 years”
First, Mrs. Malla refers to the legal battle and what happened after the tragedy. As he says “a propaganda war was set up for the causes and the framework they wanted to move was also seen by the blackmail on the expert. The political goal was that the causes were the wind, the anarchist construction. And we have been fighting for the truth for 6 years and there is still the prevalence of the opinion that “possibly, maybe you too (were to blame)”.
“We are protagonists, without wanting to be in a game. At least it’s an excuse to learn a lesson. Because, for a very long time, the state did not want to recognize its mistakes, it did not even want to study it. I don’t think that Mati became a case study, some changes were made out of necessity. Nor do I think that he recognized what we are saying, to resurrect the individual responsibility of the executives of the staff state”, he points out.
Mati: The complaint against the head of the Fire Department is shocking
In fact, Mrs. Malla reports that the residents have been upset in recent days with a piece of news and are asking for a journalistic investigation about a Fire Department official who allegedly gave the wrong body to a relative and tried to cover it up and remained in his position before walking away. for the manipulations in Hydra.
As he says: “Who is the head of the investigative department of the Fire Department who entered the “refrigerator” because of Hydra’s manipulations and if he is the same person who in our case was responsible for the management of the bodies. He had given the wrong body to a relative and called and asked the relatives, so that the prosecutor wouldn’t find out, to take a couple of firefighters along and go to dig up the person at night and bury the right one. And this man after two times to prosecutors, once in 2018 by the relatives themselves and once in court, this man, is he really the head of the investigative department of the Fire Department? And was it also in Tempe? We knew this before but in court we learned the whole story. It was distributed in court.”
“The cleansing part is difficult”
“The game is not over, the clearing part is difficult. When we say we move someone to a “refrigerator” position and you take them to the academy to train Fire Department students, is it a refrigerator? Is this the message we are getting across? This whole story has left us amazed,” said Ms. Malla.
“I didn’t hear a single siren – The world was left alone”
About how she experienced the tragedy, the survivor reports: “At 5:20 I was on a roof and saw the smoke from Penteli. Knowing that from the previous day that there would be a westerly wind, I was sure that the fire would go down to the sea. I didn’t leave, I went back to Mati, I put the children and they did some work in the house and in this way we saved it. The thing is, because I had locked in that disaster was going to happen, I kept my ears and eyes open and I can assure you that a siren never sounded. The world was left alone. He was left to live or die, to cast his lot without anyone’s input. And whatever contribution was made, it was criminal.”
“Those days we all lost. The Eye was supported by the children. Very quickly the hot spot was created, they were distributing food, they were making snacks. This gave us strength and we stood up,” he emphasized.
Mourning: Four dead from the traffic accident in Kyparissia – Among them a baby and a 12-year-old girl [εικόνες-βίντεο]
Alarm in Monastiraki: A person fell on the tracks of ISAP – Trains were stopped
Fire in Kalyvia Thorikou – Air forces also operate, 112 was called in Neos Kouvaras – Where traffic was interrupted
2024 Olympics: New bomb threat just before opening ceremony – Train station closed
#testimonies #chilling #ran #panic
