On a charred migrant path, Greek firefighters discover 18 our bodies

AFP

In the charred Greek panorama near the border with Turkey, a bunch of blackened corpses lay amid the ashes of what was as soon as a lush forest that supplied migrants the right cowl to cross into the European Union. Two of 18 lifeless had been kids.

The group of presumed migrants had been discovered close to the village of Avantas in northeastern Greece the place a fierce wildfire swept with devastating velocity, one in every of lots of throughout the nation fuelled by excessive temperatures and whipped up by gale drive winds.

“They realised, at the last moment, that the end was coming,” mentioned Pavlos Pavlidis, the coroner referred to as to the scene on Tuesday to look at the our bodies which have been burned past recognition. “It was a desperate attempt to protect themselves.”

A little bit greater than two months after lots of of migrants perished at sea off Greece attempting to succeed in Europe from Libya, one other group taking what had gave the impression to be a safer route had been stopped not by a rickety boat however by the fierce drive of nature.

Satellite pictures from earlier than and after the wildfire present the devastation wrought alongside a route that has proved common amongst migrants from the Middle East and Asia.

Swathes of greenery have been was a barren moonscape, timber was sticks of charcoal. Vegetation that was meant to protect evade the Greek police was a demise lure.

The solely spot of color within the space the place the our bodies had been discovered had been two blue medical gloves left behind by investigators.

In the early days of the fireplace, George Hatzigeorgiou, president of the Avantas group, mentioned he noticed three teams of migrants within the space.

“There was a woman with a child, the woman was wearing a headscarf, and the fire was 100 metres away,” Hatzigeorgiou mentioned, recounting how he and a good friend honked to get their consideration.

“I begged them, in English, to go to the village square. They kept saying ‘police, police’. They were afraid they’d get arrested,” he mentioned. “I told them its better to go to the square and get arrested than to burn alive.”

The individuals who perished within the forest are presumed to be amongst hundreds who cross into Greece from Turkey yearly through the fast-flowing Evros river which delineates a lot of the land frontier between the 2 international locations.

Of the 18,700 arrivals to Greece final 12 months, a 3rd had been through land, United Nations knowledge exhibits. Nearly 4,000 individuals have crossed Evros this 12 months, and Greek police say there was an uptick in August.

Hatzigeorgiou says he typically finds luggage and backpacks with Turkish liras or packets of medication in Turkish discarded across the village by individuals on the transfer.

“We’ve been seeing these people for many years, almost daily,” he mentioned. “I’ve found hundreds of such things.”

Rights teams and the UN refugee company UNHCR have lengthy accused Greece of mistreating these on the border and generally forcibly pushing them again to Turkey, a apply which is prohibited below worldwide legislation.

In a press release after the our bodies had been found, Adriana Tidona, migration researcher at Amnesty International, mentioned authorities “have systematically responded with unlawful forced returns at the border, denial of the right to seek asylum and violence.”

Greece denies the accusations, saying its “strict but fair” migration coverage protects the EU’s borders.