Greece Train Tragedy Father On Hunger Strike

Athens: The father of a young man killed in Greece's worst rail tragedy in 2023 has gone on hunger strike to protest at the authorities' refusal to conduct a full forensic examination.

Panos Ruci, whose 22-year-old son Denis died in crash, has been protesting in front of parliament and refusing food since September 15 over prosecutors' refusal to allow an exhumation of his son's body.

"For two and a half years I have been unable to obtain justice... I demand (authorisation) for the exhumation," Ruci told AFP on Sunday.

"Otherwise we'll be here day and night," he said.

Fifty-seven people, most of them young students, were killed in February 2023 when a passenger train and a freight train collided near Tempe, central Greece, having been allowed to run on the same track for 12 minutes.

The tragedy sparked sweeping strikes and hundreds of protests in Greece and abroad, denouncing the country's failure to properly investigate the accident.

Over 40 people have been prosecuted over the collision, including the station master responsible for routing the trains that night.

Two senior officials including the former transport minister have been referred to judges over the accident.

But relatives of the victims are furious that both men -- who deny any wrongdoing -- are likely to only face misdemeanour charges.

Opinion polls have shown a large majority of Greeks believe the government tried to cover up evidence into the cause of the crash.

The victims' families believe valuable evidence was lost when the crash site was bulldozed soon after the accident.

The investigation ended at the end of August.

But the families want more toxicology tests to determine whether one of the trains was carrying undeclared chemicals that caused an explosion after the crash.

The trial is not expected to begin until next year.

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