By Alexandros Avramidis and Karolina Tagaris EVROS, Greece/ATHENS (Reuters) - In the charred Greek landscape close to the border with Turkey, a group ...
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THESE SALTWIRE VIDEOSEVROS, Greece/ATHENS - In the charred Greek landscape close to the border with Turkey, a group of blackened corpses lay amid the ashes of what was once a lush forest that offered migrants the perfect cover to cross into the European Union. Two of 18 dead were children.
"They realised, at the last moment, that the end was coming," said Pavlos Pavlidis, the coroner called to the scene on Tuesday to examine the bodies that have been burned beyond recognition."It was a desperate attempt to protect themselves." Swathes of greenery have been turned into a barren moonscape, trees turned into sticks of charcoal. Vegetation that was meant to offer protection to evade the Greek police turned into a death trap.
"There was a woman with a child, the woman was wearing a headscarf, and the fire was 100 metres away," Hatzigeorgiou said, recounting how he and a friend honked to get their attention. Of the 18,700 arrivals to Greece last year, a third were via land, United Nations data shows. Nearly 4,000 people have crossed Evros this year, and Greek police say there was an uptick in August.
Rights groups and the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR have long accused Greece of mistreating those at the border and sometimes forcibly pushing them back to Turkey, a practice which is illegal under international law.
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