The witnesses denounce the absence of any measure by the government at the time – Testimonies continue on the tragedy with dozens of dead
By Ioanna Mandrou
Mrs. Margarita Fitrou, who lost her brother and his two minor children in the fiery blaze, shocked with her testimony in court, describing the moments she experienced when she first learned that her little niece, Evita, was already dead, while she was looking for her brother and his children to find out if they were alive and where they were.
“I watched the fire from the media. I made repeated attempts to contact you. I immediately had dark thoughts because I knew the area,” said the witness, beginning her testimony to describe the frantic phone calls she made to friends and acquaintances in the area after she had not been able to locate her brother. “At 3 in the morning, my brother’s wife called me and told me ‘Evitaki was found dead.’ I went to Mati, met our neighbor who was saved by fleeing to Rafina. She left first, my brother was behind. My brother’s route to rescue was deadly. On the other day of one of the Frankos plots, little Andreas and my brother were found,” said the witness and continued: “My brother was known for his affection as a father and if he had received basic information he would have left earlier. His car was tragically ironically found intact on Poseidon Avenue. In the critical hours when my brother was experiencing this, the State was completely non-existent. If “112” had been activated they would have been saved, as is done today. No preparation, no planning. Everyone acted at their own discretion. If he had received help they would have lived. This was the centenary of victims and burns. After nine months, the father also left with this woe. It is exhorted and imperative that all those who did not hurry, all those responsible for the errors and omissions of the State, be brought before Justice and punished. Let the court give a just punishment for the guilty. They were trapped without the possibility of escape…”
Earlier, a young woman described to the audience what she experienced until she found her father charred inside his car, 100 meters away from their home. “They left them at the mercy, they did absolutely nothing,” said the witness, Paraskevi Tsamprou, while both the wife and the son of the victim conveyed the same horrible images in their statements to the court. All three witnesses testified that in those tragic moments, there was neither a fire engine, nor an airplane, nor was a siren ever heard, as they reported, to warn them of the coming disaster.
“When I got to the car and after bending down and looking I didn’t see anything and I went to leave. And someone then shouted to me – I don’t know who – “look better”. I saw my father slumped in the passenger seat with his hands holding his head. They told me I can’t be sure it’s my dad. I asked them to open the trunk, because I knew he had put the dog inside so he wouldn’t be scared,” said Mrs. Chambru, the daughter of the deceased man, adding with tears in her eyes: “They didn’t. I did it myself. I took my cell phone and shined a light on the back of the car and saw the dog inside. I told them that my father is completely charred in this car. The car had melted but the license plate could be identified. I left, I couldn’t do anything else. My father was picked up at 7am the other day. No one informed us about the next steps. I searched on my own to find phone numbers and the services I should go to. They told me first about Goudi and then they told me “they wrongly told you to go to Goudi, you should have gone to Schisto”. Then they sent us back to Goudi, the whole day this story, back and forth.”
As the witness reported, at noon on the day the fire broke out, she was absent from her house in Mati, as they were at a friend’s house in Glyka Nera. “Suddenly when we were watching TV and it was talking about the fire in Kinetta, I saw they were also talking about a fire in N. Voutza. I immediately called my father, he said everyone was fine at home. I spoke to my father at 17:41. He told me they were going to start packing to leave, they had to put grandpa and our dog in the car. They left in two cars. In one was my father with our dog. In the other my brother, my mother and my grandfather. About 100 meters from our house a black veil of smoke suddenly surrounded them, my brother made a U-turn and they tried to run away in another direction. ….At that moment I was trying to call them. My father’s phone answered and hung up straight away. All communication was lost. My brother, who I spoke to, told me that they had reached a clearing in N. Voutza.”
The witness then referred to the efforts she and her brother made to find their father. “We started looking. We went to the Rafina Health Center at 2:30 in the evening. We were told it had been evacuated. They urged us to go to the Port of Rafina where they were taking people out in boats. We couldn’t find anything. At the port authority they told us to declare my father missing. We left my father’s details and our phones with some people who were from the Red Cross at the Port.’
Earlier, the victim’s daughter had testified that at 2:30 in the morning she arrived at her house with a volunteer and they started searching to find her father. “We entered the house and while we were searching, we realized that the house was on fire. We called a Fire Department but no response. The volunteer and another entered our house at the risk of their lives, they had nothing to protect. They managed to contain the fire and found that my father was not inside.. There was no one to inform the residents that they had to leave, to evacuate. They just left them like that in the swamp… My grandfather, my mother and my brother were miraculously saved,” said the young woman.
Also, during her testimony, she mentioned that 70 days before the deadly fire, “a very nice” preparedness exercise had taken place very close to their area. He said: “The irony is that when the exercise took place there were the same data as on the day of the fire, the same winds, the same conditions. But there everything worked flawlessly, because everyone managed to coordinate, air ambulance, Police, Drones. But 2.5 months later nothing was working. Same area, same conditions. In previous fires, we had the impression that a plane had flown by and had dropped a special liquid. At other fires, a patrol car passed by with loudspeakers and said “evacuate”. This time nothing. Since then we have been trying to figure out what went wrong. Everything went wrong, they were alone and those who were saved, were saved by a miracle. I saw planes the next day after the fire was out. All the forces were in Kinetta….”
Afterwards, the son of the victim, Nikolaos Tsambros, testified in court, who said: “My father took the dog with him and put him in the car and around 6:50 we left the house. Many were leaving, from the neighborhood. 100 meters from our house I realized that it was impossible to pass. My father was a car behind me… I made a U-turn and a neighbor of mine shouted to me to go the other way. Suddenly fireballs were falling, explosions were heard, it was a war like situation. I thought, however, that my father was following behind. We waited in the car for my father, who was not following. I started to call him but I couldn’t find him. We waited with no response. After about 30 minutes we tried to go to a friend’s house in Glyka Nera. My father must have been charred around 6. My sister and I were looking in a hospital, in the harbor to see if we could find him. They found his car vertically, which means he went to make a U-turn, but something happened there and he couldn’t.”
The witness reported that on that day, “we were alone” as, as he said, there was no one, no fire brigade, no planes. As he said, all he saw were private individuals trying to help.
Finally, the victim’s wife, Maria Tsamprou, told the audience: “My husband was burned alive, he was martyred. Me, my father and my son live by chance, we didn’t know where we were going, we didn’t know anything. In the center of Athens is it possible? I didn’t hear a helicopter pass by, I didn’t hear a siren sound, so many families to break up? I don’t know what to say….”
Prosecutor: Did you ask for an explanation?
Witness: What should I do with the explanation? I couldn’t stand on my feet, I lost my husband. Say what? Why couldn’t they?
The trial will continue on December 1.
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