Saturday morning in Vrilissia, short after 11 o’ clock: a man walks on the street. Suddenly he hides himself in the bushes. Flames arise from the green, screams are to be heard. A driver of a passing car, stops and rush to extinguish the fire, calls the ambulance. The man is rushed to the hospital. He has severe burning injuries.
On Sunday afternoon, the man dies. He was reportedly 50 years old. Without work for the last three years.
“He was suffering from depression, it wasn’t the first time he attempted suicide,” Greek media report.
Last month, he had cut his wrists. He was hospitalized in a psychiatric facility for short time and moved to his sister’s home in Athens from far away Ioannina.
Unemployed and divorced, the man had a signed contract with death. Without future perspective, without social facilities to heal the wounds of his suffering soul.
Greece in times of loan agreements and recession. Greece with its social welfare and health care falling apart. No everyone who is is despair has the possibilities or the options to seek support.
On that Saturday morning, in a suburb of Piraeus, another man cut his wrists. The father of two chose the public park of Keratsini to demonstrate his despair. The worker at a municipality social facility has not been paid his salary since 20 months. Together with him his 200 coworkers, many of them with disability or other health problems.
The prompt respond by passersby and ambulance saved his life.
More than 3,000 Greeks committed suicide since the beginning of the economic crisis.
