“There are unidentified body parts and biological material” from deadly fire in Eastern Attica in a mass grave at Municipality of Marathon refers to an announcement by the Association of Relatives of Deaths and Injuries of July 23, 2018, regarding documents that came into their possession regarding the content of the grave in question.

As stated in the announcement, which is signed by the president of the Association Sofia Angeliki Hamilothori and the General Secretary Aristidis Cherouveim, on the occasion of the search for documents regarding the mass grave, which the Municipality of Marathon had granted in the cemetery of Nea Makri, came into their possession document of the deputy fire chief of the Fire Department requesting the Prosecutor’s Office to arrange “for the burial of parts of human bodies and biological material as well as animal bones”. In the announcement it is stated that the authorities who proceeded with the burial cooperated “in the concealment of the real number of the dead”.

The mass grave in Marathon Municipality:

As they say:

“Beyond the huge moral issue, the question arises, if even after 6 years, we will know how many were really dead on July 23, 2018?”

His entire announcement Association is the following:

“It is confirmed, 6 years after the fatal fire of July 23, 2018, the tragic suspicion, which no relative of the deceased dared to accept, (however suspected), that, after all, there are unidentified parts of bodies and biological material.

Following a request from our Association to the Municipality of Marathon, in order to provide information and documents about the contents of the mass grave in Nea Makri Cemetery, they sent us the Deputy Mayor’s Decision No. 388/23-4-2019, by which it was decided ” the granting of a burial permit for the parts of human bodies and biological material as a result of the fire that occurred on July 23, 2018 at the Nea Makri cemetery in the Municipality of Marathon”.

The specific decision did not require any special or unknown information to us. But on a closer look, we found memorialized documents and causal evidence, which we searched for. In one of them the tragic truth is openly confessed! The then director of the Arson Crimes Directorate, and the signatory of the document, asks the Athens District Attorney’s Office on September 27, 2018, “to take care of the actions that must be taken for the burial of parts of human bodies and biological material as well as animal bones, such as and for the destruction of burned personal items, as a result of the fire that occurred on 07-23-2018 at around 16:49 in the Dau Pentelis area…” And the deputy fire chief concludes, that “for the above reason, oral communication was held with the Mayor of Marathon, which is available for the allocation of a specific space, in the Marathon Cemetery for the burial of the aforementioned”.

Clearly, it appears that in the mass grave of the Nea Makri Cemetery, the authorities, some of whom are being tried again at the Court of Appeal, buried, apart from what the document mentions, their non-existent regrets and of course the feelings of shame and lack of respect for the memory of victims, cooperating in concealing the true number of dead.

After all, if they were all buried together, it is an element of desecration of the dead to bury parts of human bodies with animal bones, for which the law provides for their cremation, or their sanitary burial.

It is pointed out and it is known to everyone, that the above-mentioned deputy chief was summoned by the Prosecutor to testify in the primary proceedings, because it was reported by a relative of the deceased, that he called her and asked her to exhume, without a prosecutor’s order, the body that had been given to her and it was not her relative’s, secretly, during the night, so that it would not be further known. Were the actions of the specific deputy fire chief known to the rest of the Fire Department leadership at the time?

Another witness testified that during the exhumation it was found that the body that was buried 6 years ago had nothing to do with her father, leading to a DNA test and subsequent legal actions.

Beyond the huge moral issue, the question arises, if even after 6 years, we will know how many were really the dead of July 23, 2018?

And how will we know if there are parts of our identified people inside the mass grave of the N. Makri Cemetery?

We warn and declare unequivocally, that it is our obligation to bring to light, what they, unrelentingly, tried, literally and figuratively, to “bury”, so that we can give our dead the due honor and soul rejoicing, with the revelation of the full truth”.