Huge Athens crowds demand justice for 2023 train crash

Riot police have clashed with protesters in Athens, after thousands of people gathered to demand justice for victims of Greece’s worst railway disaster, which killed 57 people.

In 2023, a passenger service carrying 350 people collided with a freight train near the Greek village of Tempi, causing the front carriages to burst into flames.

“I don’t have oxygen” is the main slogan of the protests – referring to the finding that many were killed not by the collision itself, but by the fire caused by prohibited chemicals on the cargo train.

The crash prompted widespread condemnation of safety standards on Greece’s railways, as well as the state’s handling of the subsequent investigation.

Video shows police firing tear gas, as demonstrators threw sticks and others objects towards officers.