Missing twins died ‘hugging their grandparents’ in Greek wildfires
TWO nine-year-old twins who went missing in Greece’s wildfires died “hugging” their grandparents, it has been confirmed, as the death toll reached 88 yesterday.
A family friend announced on Facebook that the bodies of sisters Sophia and Vassiliki Philippopoulou were identified along with their grandparents.
Angelos Kontos wrote: “The epilogue has been written. All four found hugging each other. Not even death could tear them apart.”
A private detective employed by the family later confirmed the news. They were among 26 bodies found huddled in a “last embrace” on a cliff edge.
The sisters’ disappearance gripped the country’s attention after their father, Yiannis, claimed to have caught sight of them in television news footage showing people disembarking a fishing boat used to rescue survivors.
He made an emotional appeal on national TV for anyone who had been on the boat to contact him. Mr Philippo- poulou, who had driven with his family from their home in Kallithea, in the southern suburbs of Athens, to their summer house in Mati on Monday afternoon, spent hours desperately searching local hospitals for his daughters and their grandparents.
However, hopes of the girls being found alive began to fade when another passenger on the boat came forward to confirm that the children were his own.
The death toll from the worst wildfires in Europe this century rose to 88 after a woman in her 40s died in hospital.
The health ministry said 12 other people remained in hospital with serious injuries.
Forensics experts have faced a difficult task trying to identify the bodies of those who perished.
Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, said on Friday he assumed “political responsibility” for the tragedy.
The government has come in for strong criticism over its response to the disaster, despite a €40million (£36million) relief fund.