A 15-year-old boy was killed when a bomb exploded outside a public building in the Athens district of Patissia late Sunday night, and his 10-year-old sister was seriously injured and their mother suffered superficial wounds.
The family, Afghani nationals, are believed to have been searching the garbage bins for food and other items.
The Minister for Public Safety Michalis Chryssohoidis, who rushed to the scene, said that terrorism has shown its most abhorrent face, and pledged that the perpetrators will be found and brought to justice.
According to latest reports by police, citing the mother, the girl found a travel bag next to a garbage bin and opened it up to see what it contained.
The son, who approached the travel bag, saw a clock which he believed was broken and took the travel bag and threw it away, at which time the explosion occurred, dismembering the boy and injuring the girl.
“We do not know yet about the motive or the intended target. All I can tell you, from what the mother told the police, is that the victim was her 15-year-old son,” said a police spokesman.
“The perpetrators … consider all of us as their enemies. We will find them soon,” said the civil protection minister, Michalis Chryssochoidis.
He went on to say: “A young person lost his life from the death trap planted by terrorists. The murderers consider all of us, whether police, or immigrants, or any other citizen, enemies,” he said.
“The terrorists are against an entire society, but society, too, is against them. It is our duty that they be arrested and led to justice. Every time they carry out such actions they make mistakes, and bring us closer to their tracks. These actions denude them, and will reveal them,” the minister added.