When you venture to your holiday house for the summer, the last thing you expect to see are the remains of dead animals and streets overflowing with bags of rubbish.
But that’s precisely what local resident Antiope Argyriou encountered when she set out for her annual getaway to the outskirts of Salamis.
Distressed by the state of the island, another resident took to the online publication Gorga News hoping to draw much needed attention to the issue:
“I’ve spent many beautiful summers on this island and it always had the magical ability to wash away my every concern and problem, with the sound of the waves alone.
“What I came up against this year – perhaps more than any other time – were images of horror and neglect.”
In the excerpt now published online accompanied with photos testifying the decay and the tons of garbage putting the locals’ health at risk, the residents go on to pose questions to the municipal authorities of the island and local residents.
They ask the mayor of the island, Roula Nannou, why such a historic site has been left in this state and abandoned, while asking locals how they can stand “to live together with rats and cockroaches, in an atmosphere full of unpleasant odours from the tons of garbage”.