CHARRED BODIES OF 18 SUSPECTED MIGRANTS FOUND IN WILDFIRE ZONE IN NORTH-EAST GREECE

Tue 22 August 2023:

Greek authorities said the bodies of 18 people were found Tuesday in an area of northeastern Greece struck by a major wildfire.

The charred bodies were found in a remote village in northern Greece on Tuesday, where wildfires have been raging for days, the fire brigade said as a heatwave hitting southern Europe turned deadly.

Greek media, without citing sources, said that the bodies discovered south of Avantas were thought to be of migrants. The broader Evros region is a popular route for migrants crossing from Turkey into Greece.

On Monday, the burnt body of another man believed to be a migrant was found in the region, a local police official said, while two new fires broke out near Athens.

As dozens of wildfires scorch Greece, other parts of the region are suffering under intense heat, as Europe’s summer of extremes continues. More than 20 countries are under heat warnings with temperatures reaching record-breaking levels in some areas.

Some of the major ongoing wildfires are in the Greek northeastern town of Alexandroupolis where 13 communities have been evacuated since Saturday, according to the fire brigade.

Two hundred patients were evacuated from two hospitals in the town on Tuesday. An Alexandroupolis Hospital Nurse, Nikos Gioktsidis, compared the situation to war, telling Reuters, “I’ve been working for 27 years, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like war conditions, really.”

Greece suffers destructive wildfires every summer, which officials say have been exacerbated by climate change.

As parts of Greece and Spain burn, temperatures are reaching record levels in other parts of Europe.

There are 21 countries across the continent under heat warnings, with six under red heat warnings – the highest level – said MeteoAlarm, a network of European national weather services.

France is one of the worst affected.

Greece’s deadliest wildfire killed 104 people in 2018, in a seaside resort near Athens that residents had not been warned to evacuate. Authorities have since erred on the side of caution, issuing swift mass evacuation orders whenever inhabited areas are under threat.

Last month, a wildfire on the resort island of Rhodes forced the evacuation of some 20,000 tourists . Days later, two air force pilots were killed when their water-dropping plane crashed while diving low to tackle a blaze on Evia. Another three wildfire-related deaths have been recorded this summer.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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