Late in the evening of 28 February, two trains, one passenger and one cargo, running on the Athens-Thessaloniki line collided head-on near the city of Larissa, resulting in the injury and the tragic loss of dozens of people.

From the first moment, the GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, stated the following:

“It is a day of unspeakable sorrow for the unprecedented fatal train accident in Tempe, but also of anger for how it is possible that human lives are lost in this tragic way.

We demand that there be a full investigation into the causes of this tragedy, that nothing be hidden or covered up.

We express our deepest condolences to the families of the victims. Efforts to locate the missing persons should be intensified and full support should be given to the injured.”

This is a crime that happened after years of initially “liberalizing” and then privatizing railways in Greece, under the responsibility of all the governments of ND, PASOK and SYRIZA. The latter was even the one that reached and voted for the agreement to privatize TRAINOSE and sell it to the Italian monopoly “Ferrovie” in 2017.

The communist trade unionists in the railways have been sounding the alarm about the situation through successive statements. The most recent one wasissued on 7 February 2023, where they pointed out that “It is now outrageous that these incidentsare almost a daily occurrence and that no substantial measures are taken, no improvements in infrastructure and operation are initiated, no control is exercised over the actors involved and no responsibilities are sought. Like previous governments, the current one has other priorities and not the safe movement of citizens.They perceive safety as a cost.”

01.03.2023