18 People Killed in Greek Wildfire May Be Migrants, Authorities Say

Greek firefighters recovered the our bodies of 18 folks on Tuesday who they imagine could also be migrants within the Evros area of northern Greece, near the town of Alexandroupolis, the place a serious wildfire was burning for a fourth day.

The charred stays had been discovered close to a shack on the border of the Dadia Forest, a spokesman for the Greek hearth service, Yiannis Artopios, stated in a televised briefing. There have been no studies of lacking folks within the space, so the authorities stated they had been analyzing the chance that the lifeless “had entered the country illegally,” Mr. Artopios stated.

No additional particulars had been out there in regards to the lifeless. The Evros area, the place the our bodies had been discovered, is on the border with Turkey and is a crossing level for hundreds of migrants looking for to enter Europe by way of Greece.

The hearth service spokesman added that the authorities had despatched a number of evacuation alerts since Monday to cellphones registered with each Greek and overseas networks within the space. He added that the Greek police had mobilized a group of specialists to determine the victims.

The hearth close to Alexandroupolis was one among a number of burning on Tuesday, and Greek firefighters’ efforts to battle them had been difficult by dry circumstances and robust winds.

As the flames unfold within the early afternoon, the authorities in Alexandroupolis known as for residents of 10 villages to go away. That adopted the evacuation of dozens of hospital sufferers, a few of whom had been put onto a ferry within the early hours of the morning, whereas others had been taken by ambulance. Most had been being transferred to the northern metropolis of Kavala.

Video from the early hours of Tuesday confirmed the sky glowing purple behind the Alexandroupolis college hospital after the flames reached its grounds.

On the ferry, sufferers with IV drips lay on mattresses as nurses walked amongst oxygen tanks and different tools, video confirmed. Εleven newborns from the identical hospital had been amongst these transferred.

In addition to the blaze close to Alexandroupolis, Greek firefighters on Tuesday had been battling wildfires on the islands of Kythnos and Evia, within the northern area of Rodopi and in Aspropyrgos and Fyli, west of Athens.

A convoy of army automobiles was dispatched to northern Greece on Tuesday to assist battle the fires there.

The European Union, which maintains a standing firefighting power pooled from E.U. nations, dispatched extra sources to Greece on Tuesday. The assist contains 58 firefighters, 5 airplanes from Croatia, Germany and Sweden, a Black Hawk helicopter and 9 water tanks from the Czech Republic. Sweden stated it was additionally dispatching two water-scooping plane to assist.

On Monday, the authorities linked two extra deaths to the fires after the charred physique of a shepherd was discovered within the central Viotia area and the stays of a person believed to be a migrant was found in Lefkimmi, close to Alexandroupolis.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting from Brussels.