On Sunday, clashes broke out between police and a group of demonstrators on the outskirts of a protest in central Athens. The protest was organized by thousands of students and railway workers in response to Greece’s deadliest train crash in living memory. The small group of protesters threw petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas and hand grenades before dispersing the crowd to nearby streets.
The train crash occurred on Tuesday, resulting in at least 57 deaths and dozens of injuries. A passenger train carrying over 350 people collided with a freight train on the same track in central Greece. In response to the tragedy, protests have taken place across the country over the past three days. On Sunday, around 10,000 students, railway workers, and groups affiliated with left-wing parties gathered in an Athens square to express their condolences for the lives lost and demand better safety standards on the rail network.
Protesters released black balloons into the sky while shouting, “That crime won’t be forgotten.” A placard read, “Their policies cost human lives.” The train was packed with university students returning from a long holiday weekend, triggering an outpouring of anger and a sharp focus on safety standards.
Railway workers, who also lost colleagues in the accident, have staged rotating walkouts since Wednesday to denounce cost-cutting and underinvestment in the rail infrastructure. This is a legacy of Greece’s debilitating debt crisis from 2010 to 2018. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government has blamed human error for the crash. However, Mitsotakis said on Sunday that human error should not deflect from responsibilities for a long-suffering railway network.
“As prime minister, I owe everyone, but most of all the relatives of the victims, an apology,” he wrote on Facebook. “Justice will very fast investigate the tragedy and determine liabilities.” A station master in the nearby city of Larissa who was on duty at the time of the crash was charged this week with endangering lives and disrupting public transport. The station master appeared before a magistrate on Sunday after his lawyer requested extra time on Saturday to respond to the charges following new information concerning the case. Those proceedings were ongoing.