3 People Burned Alive in Greek Bank 16 Years Ago Today
Sixteen years ago today, on May 5, 2010, three people were killed when protesters threw Molotov cocktails into a Marfin Bank branch in central Athens during a massive general strike against Greece's first bailout memorandum. One of the victims was pregnant. The three employees had been locked inside the building by management, unable to escape as the flames spread.
The march that day was called by Greece's two largest labor unions, GSEE and ADEDY, along with the communist-affiliated PAME, drawing tens of thousands into the streets across the country. The target was the government's agreement with the IMF and European partners on a brutal austerity package that would define the next decade of Greek life.
The attack on the Marfin branch on Stadiou Street became one of the darkest moments of the Greek financial crisis. The three victims, Angelos Patates, Paraskevi Zoulia, and Epaminondas Tsakalis, died not from the political choices that triggered the crisis, but from the actions of a small number of individuals within the crowd who threw incendiary devices into a building with people trapped inside.
Several arrests were made in the years that followed. The case dragged through the Greek court system for over a decade. Convictions were eventually handed down, though many Greeks felt the justice delivered never matched the weight of what was lost that day.
The Marfin fire remains a reference point in Greek political memory, invoked every time mass protest turns violent, and every year on May 5 the names of the three victims are read aloud by those who refuse to let the date pass quietly.
