Greece’s diplomats will leave the Damascus embassy on Monday over safety fears amid looting by Islamist-led rebels who seized the city from the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, the embassy head said Sunday.
“The situation here does not permit foreseeing that we can remain in relative safety… there are three Greek staff at the embassy and we will leave tomorrow,” Damascus charge d’affaires Nikolaos Protonotarios told state TV ERT.
Despite a curfew, gunfire had not stopped since the rebels took the city early on Sunday morning, he said.
“The rebels are not organised in one group and began looting across Damascus, embassies included. As a result, most embassies want to leave,” Protonotarios said.
Greece’s foreign ministry on Saturday had warned citizens already in Syria to avoid unnecessary travel and observe the maximum possible security measures.
Protonotarios on Sunday there were between 50 and 60 Greek families in Damascus.
The ministry had earlier said it had received no requests from Greeks wishing to leave Syria.
Prior to that, the Syrian opposition flag was unfurled at the Syrian embassy in Athens on Sunday, hours after Islamist-led rebels declared they had taken Damascus, ending the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
Greek state news agency ANA said at least three men had entered the embassy and unfurled the flag, which was seen hanging from the roof of the building.
Officers were sent to the scene and three men was detained, it added.
The police did not respond to AFP requests for comment.
One man was seen on an embassy balcony clutching a portrait of Assad and shouting “dictator”.
Syrians who fled to Greece when the Assad regime was installed in 1970 came to the embassy to celebrate.
“The dictator escaped. It is over… A new dawn rises for Syria,” said Maarouf Alobeid, a cardiologist who has lived in Greece for four decades.
“I came running from my home… The thirst of the Syrian people for freedom, for democracy… cannot be described,” he said.
“Twenty-four million Syrians didn’t sleep all night,” said Nader Halbouni, a senior official from the Syrian community in Greece.
A gathering by Syrians in Greece was scheduled for later on Sunday.
Tens of thousands of Syrians fled to Greece in the 2015 mass migration wave, most of them aiming to reach Germany and other wealthy European Union states.
According to the migration ministry, over 15,000 Syrians currently have residence permits in Greece.
Source: AFP
