Thousands of striking Greek workers and students marched through central Athens to mark the first anniversary of the country's deadliest train disaster, demanding justice and bigger pay increases.
Wednesday's 24-hour strike halted train services across the country and disrupted urban traffic in the Greek capital. Railway and hospital workers, ship and ferry crews, and school teachers all quit their jobs, and the ship docked in a port near Athens.
Some marchers in Athens carried black banners that read: “We have not forgotten – we demand justice.”
On February 28, 2023, a passenger train from Athens to the northern city of Thessaloniki collided head-on with a freight train, killing 57 people and leading to what many saw as the result of decades of neglect by the rail sector. A large-scale protest took place.
On Wednesday, churches across the country rang their bells 57 times to mark the number of victims, many of them students returning home after a long weekend.
The strike was called by ADEDY, Greece's largest public sector union, representing around 500,000 workers.
But other protesters also joined the march, including students who wrote the names of the dead on the ground in front of the heavily guarded parliament.
There were brief clashes between police and demonstrators in Athens, and similar protests in Thessaloniki.
Hours after last year's accident, the station master was arrested. Dozens of people have since been charged in the case, which is currently being investigated by a local judge. The government has said the trial is likely to begin in June.
However, many survivors and relatives of victims argued that politicians, who are protected from prosecution under Greek law because only parliament can investigate, should also be held responsible for failing security systems.
Grieving families and survivors held a memorial service and laid white flowers and wreaths at the crash site in Tempe, central Greece, where a placard read: “57 souls want justice.''
“Greece must never again experience such a blow to its security and public trust,” President Katerina Sakellaropoulos said.
After the accident, the Conservative government promised to reform the railway and make it safer. But a year on, accident experts and railway officials told Reuters the safety system was still not fully functional.
“As prime minister, as a citizen and as a father, I share this country's sorrow,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a televised address on Wednesday, pledging to heal the country's chronic deficiencies.
“Our mission is to turn pain into action.”
The demonstrators also protested that their first pay increase after 14 years working in the public sector was insufficient. They said the increase was not large enough to offset the impact of rising costs of living. In exchange, workers want a 10% across-the-board wage increase and more employment.
Greece is recovering from a decade of debt crisis and three international bailouts it received in exchange for public sector wage cuts and the end of holiday bonuses.
Since taking office in 2019, the conservative government has raised the minimum monthly wage by 20% to 780 euros (about 84,400 yen), and has promised to raise it to 950 euros by 2027.
However, the country's monthly salaries still lag behind the European Union average.