A day after the bodies of 18 migrants were found in one of the wildfires raging around Greece, locals said Wednesday they were expecting more deaths as the area is a major entry point.
“The places where the fire started in Dadia forest are migrant crossings,” Valantis Gialamas, head of the border guards of Evros prefecture, told AFP.
“At the same time as the fires occurred, there was an increase in immigration flows. My personal assessment is that there may be other dead people found when the fire is extinguished and an autopsy is performed,” Gialamas said.
The 16 men and two children were found Tuesday near a shack in a rural area north of Alexandroupolis, one of the largest Greek cities near the Turkish border, the fire service said.
Officials surmised they were migrants because they had not responded to emergency warnings sent to cellphones calling for the area to be evacuated, fire department spokesman Yiannis Artopios told reporters.
Another suspected migrant was found dead in a forest closer to the border on Monday.
The Greek army said it had stepped up patrols in the area.
“Despite the persistent efforts of the Greek authorities to protect the borders and human life, this tragedy stands as yet another reminder of the dangers of irregular migration,” Migration Minister Dimitris Kairidis said in a statement.
“I am sure there will be more dead from the fire which is developing in areas that are passages and hiding places,” a senior police officer serving in the area said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Greek firefighters have battled over 350 fires over the last five days, including over 200 in the last 48 hours.
The government on Wednesday said the country was facing the worst summer since fire risk maps were introduced in 2009.
Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias noted that the number of fire emergency warnings issued this year was “twice as many as in 2021, four times those of 2019 and seven times those of 2012.”
Source: AFP
