Riots between police officers and protesters following a protest over the response to the train crash in Greece

Mitsotakis has apologized for the accident and has promised improvements to the rail system

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Police and demonstrators have starred in clashes this Sunday during a protest demonstration against the authorities’ response to the Tempi train accident on February 28, in which 57 people died.

More than 10,000 people have seconded the call of the railway unions, which have been joined by other union organizations, political parties and collectives.

Shortly after noon, a group of people threw Molotov cocktails, flares and stones at police officers in Syntagma Square in the center of the Greek capital. The agents responded with gas and stun grenades.

The incidents spread to Panepistimi street, where protesters set fire to construction machinery and damaged several bus stop shelters, reports Athena 98.4 FM.

Later in Omonoia square, the agents used gas again against the demonstrators, who withdrew to Piraeus street and Socrates street. After about 300 people have gathered in front of Parliament, again in the square, now without major incidents.

APOLOGIES FROM THE PRIME MINISTER

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has published a message on social networks to apologize for what happened in the train accident.

“Let me start with the obvious. As Prime Minister I owe everyone, but especially the families of the victims, a huge apology both personally and on behalf of all those who have governed the country in recent years,” he said. the conservative leader.

“It cannot be that in Greece, in 2023, two trains circulate in opposite directions on the same track (…). We cannot, we must not and we do not want to hide behind human error. If the remote management project had been completed, it would have It was practically impossible for this accident to have occurred,” he pointed out.

Mitsotakis has stressed that there will be a rapid judicial investigation to clarify the responsibilities and has advanced that the responsible Ministry will announce new measures in a matter of days to improve the safety of the railways.

At a political level, he has pointed to the creation of a commission of inquiry in Parliament to examine “everything that has happened on Greek trains in the last 20 years.”

The leader has taken the opportunity to highlight the “other Greece” represented by the emergency workers, the health workers who responded to the accident from the first moment. “We also see the face of that better Greece in the passengers who risked their lives to save other passengers, in the Greek men and women who rushed to donate blood and in the young people who have protested silently and peacefully by candlelight,” he argued. he.