https://www.skai.gr/tags/diki-gia-to-mati«I called out the names of Evita, Andreas and Grigoris, but no one answered! There was no one to answer us. As if we were ghosts, in a funeral landscape. Everything was black and smelled of burnt flesh. Inside the cars some tumors. I saw people burned and people lying and I hoped not to see my own like that… I learned that it was on the plot where 26 people were burned! He was one of the last to flee to the Franks estate».

In the midst of absolute silence, today, among other witnesses, Varvara Voukaki, the woman who lost her family in the afternoon of the fire that burned Mati, testified at the Three-Member Misdemeanor Appeals Court: her husband Grigoris Fitros, her 13-year-old daughter Evita and 11 year old son of Andreas.

The witness described the “Dante’s Inferno” that she witnessed when she arrived, after the fire passed through Mati, looking for her own, but also the shocking moments she experienced when she was asked to identify her dead daughter from a photograph and a few hours later when she was asked to provide genetic material to identify the her husband and son.

And in today’s process, the responsibilities of the Fire Department as well as the Police, which channeled all the cars to Mati, were highlighted, “in this lens» as Mrs. Voukaki said, who saw the incredible images of the burned, traffic jammed cars in the settlement, which were looking for an escape.

Witnesses also referred to the defendant, the then mayor of Rafina, Evangelos Bournos, who was acquitted in the first instance and is being tried again after the prosecutor’s appeal. Mr. Burnous is accused by the residents of Mati that he practically reassured them when he declared to a television station, while the fire was raging, that “Mati is not in danger”.

According to the witness Theofanis Hatjistamatiou, whose minor son suffered very serious burns, in that statement, Mr. Bournous urged the residents of Matiou “not to go out into the streets so as not to obstruct the Fire Department’s vehicles”.

Mrs. Voukaki emphasized in her testimony that she hopes that this “last time” when she stands in front of a court to relive what has scarred her forever, something better will happen.

“I want you to judge fairly those who are responsible” he told the judges, adding that he hopes that “when I meet my people again I can hug them and tell them that since I didn’t follow them on the road they took that afternoon, I did what I did where I stayed what could i do To tell them that I achieved the exemplary punishment of those responsible. So that it doesn’t happen again».

Mrs. Voukaki said that “this whole story is not a misdemeanor. It is a tragic crime, a murder” what happened in Mati, while he noted that he hopes “to stop the evil in the country».

Those watching the trial listened with great emotion as the woman described every emotion she felt that afternoon as she tried to reach the Eye, hoping her people would be okay.

However, some of those present were displeased when, during the woman’s testimony, the following dialogue followed with the president:

Witness: I apologize for the length, but this is the story of my life…

President: I understand. Many people want to tell their life story, but a little more briefly…

The witness emphasized that her family would have lived if her husband had not been forced by a patrol car to return to Mati in the car that he and the children wanted to take to Rafina when they saw the fire approaching their house. “There was no communication between the agencies, someone… something… No one informed our people to leave. They moved at will. Grigoris threw his dice at me and he would have been saved, if the police had not turned him back to the lens, on Demokratias street near the Fragos estate,” he said.

The witness described the moment when in the port of Rafina a port guard told her about a photo with a girl “who looks like Evita and asked me if I could bear to see her. I saw the little girl and she was my Evita. She was wearing the same clothes as she had sent a video at noon of her singing. But this time she had no life, she wasn’t burnt, she was in her clothes and bracelets. I don’t think I need to describe to you what I felt, I wanted my own life to be lost too. I found out he was on the lot. He was one of the last in Franko. Grigoris was found burnt, Andreas a little further back. And Evita in the last attempt, fled towards the rocks. There were people who saw her: in a last attempt she jumped and fell on the rocks, on the beach. And one of them ran to see, to give a help and he saw my child and called the fire department, but no one came. And my Evitula lived and held her hand, until she cooled down there. I could have had at least one child if someone had gone! If there was an update, if a coast guard, a fireman… I don’t know. I would have my child as it was, alive».

In her testimony, Vasiliki Katsargyri, whose husband was incinerated together with their neighbor in Neo Voutza, said that when she was looking for her husband in their house the next day and asked a firefighter if there were dead people in Neo Voutza as well, he had answered her “you will learn from the Media».

She also said that when the fire broke out her neighbor called the Fire Department to see what was going on and they told her about the fire.

“But when she asked if they should leave or not they told her “do whatever you think”».

Mr. Hadjistamatiou in his testimony emphasized that “the tragedy in Mati was played out in many phases” and that from the day after the tragedy “a scenario was drawn up” so that the blame would fall on the residents. “We heard about unregulated construction, dead-end roads, street cutting… We heard about illegal construction, but most of them died in a piece within a city plan. No one took responsibility for this voluntary evacuation… It was an unorganized evacuation, 3,000 people were saved because they ran to escape. We did not request an organized evacuation, but for this unorganized evacuation we wanted to be informed in advance of the location of the fire».

Georgia Moschou, a resident of Neo Vuzha, lost her mother and sister almost outside their home.

“The absence of aerial means… there was not even a hint of help. I listen to the previous witnesses who are so mild and it drives me crazy. What we went through… the indifference… until 11 there was nothing, no one… my sister and niece went out and burned outside the house. My sister lasted 11 days and my niece 51 days…

When the firefighters came, we asked them to put out the smoldering fire and they told us that they did not have an order. They had no order for anything! As if they had come for a walk!».