"We feel immense rage!": 12,000 people shouted their anger on Sunday in front of the Parliament in Athens, a rally marked by violent clashes between demonstrators and police, after the train disaster which raised a wave of indignation throughout Greece .
"The greed, the lack of measures taken to protect passengers has led to the worst rail tragedy in our country", gets carried away in the procession Michalis Hasiotis, president of the union of accountants.
"We feel immense rage!" He added as students, railway workers and public service staff called on Greeks to come and hold the authorities accountable after the tragedy on Tuesday evening.
Not far away, on Syntagma Square, the esplanade below the Parliament in the center of Athens, signs and banners denounce: "Down with the murderous governments!", "It was not human error!".
Other participants distribute accusing leaflets showing the face of Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis accompanied by these words in red: "Wanted crime minister".
Then hundreds of black balloons take off in the immense blue sky of Athens to pay tribute to the 57 dead of the frontal collision between a passenger train connecting Athens to Thessaloniki, in the north, and a convoy of goods.
Most of the victims were young people and students returning to Thessaloniki, the large university city, after a long weekend.
television, heartbreaking images of parents in tears desperately waiting in front of a hospital for information on the fate of their children also contributed to casting shame on the authorities and their management deemed calamitous of this disaster.
This tragedy also aroused immense anger at the negligence and shortcomings in the railways.
And the gathering, the fourth since the accident, degenerated into violent incidents.
"They bombarded us with tear gas, old people couldn't breathe. Do you think that's how we commemorate our dead?", said a student Kallikratis Pavlakis indignantly after the return to relative calm.
"Nothing is going well in this country, the hospitals are dying, the schools are closing, the forests are burning? Who are they kidding?", continues Nikos Tsikalakis, president of a railway union.
And the apologies from Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who apologized to the families of the victims on Sunday in a rare solemn declaration, did nothing to quell the anger in a climate of widespread mistrust.
This mea culpa is "a hypocrisy", thunders Mariana Chronopoulou, a teacher in a primary school, present at the demonstration. "He knew that the railway network was in a deplorable state, he did nothing".
The dilapidated state of the railway network, various problems in the signaling and safety system on the railways have been pointed out.
On Sunday, trains and the metro are also at a standstill throughout the country.
Not far from the protest, meanwhile, the Prime Minister took part in a religious service in the Orthodox Cathedral of Athens, as all the churches in the country pay tribute to the victims of what has been described by the government as "a national tragedy".
At the small station of Rapsani, near the scene of the accident in the center of the country, parents of students put red and white carnations and lit candles on the rails.
Young people from the local school held up a sign. "It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a bad time. It's profit over human lives."
Already Friday, in Athens, angry protesters had chanted "assassins" in front of the headquarters of the Hellenic Train railway company in the capital, and wrote this word in red letters on the facade of the building.
05/03/2023 17:46:07 - Athens (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
