‘They were running to escape the fire’

In his lab in Alexandroupoli, northeastern Greece, coroner Pavlos Pavlidis has been receiving the bodies of migrants for two decades. Their remains are often trapped at the bottom of the Evros River for months. However, on August 22, he was called to a scorched hillside near the village of Avantas. As he walked amidst the charred woodland, he found 18 bodies, believed to be migrants, within a 500-meter radius. “They were attempting to descend the hillside. They were running to escape the fire, but due to the strong wind, it overtook them,” he explains. Pavlidis believes that more bodies will be discovered once the fire, which has been burning for over two weeks, is extinguished. [Antonis Pasvantis]