Greece: Mass protests demand justice for rail crash victims

Tens of thousands of protesters in Greece on Sunday demanded justice for the 57 victims of the nation's deadliest rail disaster in 2023.

There were protests in nearly 100 Greek cities and 13 other places worldwide. In Greece, marches took place in the largest cities, Athens and Thessaloniki. About 30,000 people joined the demonstration in Athens, while around 16,000 demonstrated in Thessaloniki.

"What is happening today is majestic," Pavlos Aslanidis, the father of a victim, told the media in Thessaloniki. "This is now a global fight," he added, referring to the protests abroad.

"My son's soul must be elated... I believe we will win. We have ranged the state against us, but we will win."

Clashes in the Greek capital Athens

Protests in Greece were mostly peaceful. However, in some places people attacked the police with rocks and flares and the police used tear gas and flash-bang grenades.

DW's Sofia Kleftaki, who was at the demonstration in Athens, said one person was injured in one of the clashes.

Much of central Athens was blocked by the demonstration.

"Two years after the tragedy, no one has been punished, no one is in prison," Ilias Papangelis, whose 18-year-old daughter was among those killed, told the crowd of protesters.

"This has been the most mafia-like cover-up operation," Maria Karystianou, whose daughter died in the crash, told the Athens protesters marching outside the Parliament building Sunday.

Demonstrators held placards and chanted "I have no oxygen" — the chilling last words of Karystianou's daughter who had called the 112 European emergency number to report the incident. Many in the crowd chanted "Murderers!"

Other banners read: "We don't forget, we don't forgive" and "Justice, not forgetting." Some accused the government of having blood on their hands.

More protests were staged in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Cologne, Helsinki, Nicosia, Reykjavik and Valetta, Malta.

Call for justice for victims of Greece's worst train crash

The disaster happened on February 28, 2023, when a passenger train collided head-on with a freight train after both had been mistakenly put on the same track.

Several rumors have emerged since about what led to the scale of the incident.

Families of the victims and protesters believe the government is hiding evidence and running an opaque investigation while trying to pin the disaster on the stationmaster.

Many believe that some 30 of the 57 victims had survived the initial high-speed crash but died in a fire caused by dangerous chemicals on board the freight train.

Leaks from a report funded by victims' families seem to corroborate that the cargo train was carrying an illegal load of explosive chemicals.

Greeks still await a trial for the disaster, a process that has been pushed back by a lengthy investigation, delays in reports by technical experts, and even new additions to the witness list from the group of survivors and victims.