UPDATE: Shortly after 4.30 pm the mother was convinced to step down from the OEK window. At 3 pm she was seriously about to jump from the window but a woman persuaded not to do so. The drama of the parents who threatened to commit suicide due to upcoming unemployment shok the public opinion in Greece, while many foreign correspondents reported also about.
Earlier today KTG wrote:
There are people and destinies behind statistics numbers and fiscal balances. People pushed into despair from one day to the next. People at the edge of the cliff. Without hope. Without perspective. Drawn in a lake of uncertainty. At 11.30 am on Wednesday morning a woman and her husband climbed at the windows of the third floor of OEK (Workers’ Housing Organisation) and threaten to jump. The parents of two children, one of them disabled, are facing immediate loss of work and income, as the OEK is one of the state institutions that will be closed down with the Troika’s orders. The new loan agreement provides that employees at the state organisations to be closed down will be dismissed. 5,000 employees are threatened with the ‘sudden death’ of their work places.
The desperate parents were asking to speak with the Labour Minister and discuss their future. After long negotiations with police psychologist and colleagues, the father was convinced to give up his fatal plan.
Video:
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However as of 3 pm local time, the mother still remains at the building’s balcony… Desperate… lost…
The family moved from Preveza to Athens a couple of years ago in order to be closer to facilities for their disabled child. The mother is a civil engineer, the father is workers’ supervisor.
OEK: Firemen in action
Suicides have dramatically increased in Greece in the last two years. People without job or/and huge debts chose to take their lives and give an end to the martydoom. The president of the municipality workers’ union, Themis Mpalasopoulos, told newsportal NewsIt that two municipality workers in Athens and one in Thessaloniki committed suicide in the last two weeks.
sources: Zougla.gr , NewIt, and others
Yes, these stories are really hitting home the fact that Greece is not an abstract entity with Good Guys and Bad Guys. But Greece is a country with real people, with real huge problems and real justified despair.