‘People are fighting the fires alone’: Locals recount devastating scenes as Greece blazes destroy homes

Published

4 years ago

August 9, 2021

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It is sad to think that just a few days ago a family lived happily in the burned shell of the house we are now looking around in the village of Limni on Evia Island.

That next door the same family ran a business built over 40 years. Now, the son of the family, Pablos Garyfallou, stares with incredulity at what he is seeing.

The village was one of the first to be evacuated during a week of devastating fires here. Pablos took his parents to safety and has returned to see what is left of the home they had to flee.

Everything is destroyed. The fire that swept through Limni was ferocious and Pablos says the emergency services were only preoccupied with getting people out, not saving property. He says more help should have been sent.

He tells me: “Maybe there were some people here but but it was only about the evacuation. It was not to take care of the houses. It was just to take the people away and save lives. Only one plane came over to tackle the fires.”

He says people in many villages are unhappy. Forced to flee their homes, they expected the emergency services to protect their properties. He says when his father learned of what became of what he worked so hard to create he simply cried.

And Pablos now worries what will happen to Evia. He says: “I think lots of people will leave the island. It’s not a small piece of Evia that has burned, it’s half the island. And who is going to pay for all this? We can’t pay, that’s for sure.”

That’s a question so many who have made their lives on Evia will now be asking. So much has been destroyed here and so much is still in jeopardy.

From the village of Gouves we watch flames threaten a house on a hillside. There are no firefighters there to try to halt the fire. No plane overhead to drop water.

Instead three men, local residents, are using the only tools they have at their disposal to try to protect the property. Buckets of water.

Their efforts appear futile, but while we watch they are the only ones trying to do anything. And that makes the residents of Gouves angry.

John Zisis is also watching. He tells us: “The people are fighting the fires alone. The forest is all burned out. The houses were saved so far because people fought for them. Only people. Nobody else.”

The truth is the emergency services have been overwhelmed on Evia. Support has now come with firefighters arriving from other nations but the scale and duration of the disaster has defeated all efforts.

The Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has now apologised, saying what has happened on Evia “darkens the hearts of us all”. He went on to say: “I apologise for any weaknesses that existed.”

Those words are likely to ring hollow for many on this island who believe much more help could have and should have come.

World

Israel’s PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Published

4 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel's PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

World

Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’

Published

10 hours ago

August 10, 2025