Athens suburb, village in Pella welcome Ukrainian refugees
The mayor of a suburb in southern Athens and a village in northern Greece welcomed on Tuesday refugee families who arrived from Ukraine a few days ago.
Mayor of Argyroupolis-Ellinikon Giannis Konstantantos spoke to refugees who were invited at the municipal headquarters on Tuesday.
The municipality has been hosting the war-fleeing families, which include children with hearing impairments; the children are already enrolled in the municipality’s special learning school since last Friday.
Konstantatos said that the municipality of Argyroupolis-Ellinikon “was created by people who fled a war,” and “restarted life, culture and their traditions right here,” referring to Pontic Greeks, refugees from the Black Sea region of Asia Minor. He also thanked Lamda Development CEO Odysseas Athanasiou for the company’s financial support in hosting the families.
Meanwhile, three Ukrainian women from Kharkiv and Nikolaev with their children have been welcomed at the village of Tsaki, in the municipality of Almopia, in the Pella region of northern Greece. Children from the local primary school welcomed eight Ukrainian schoolchildren with Pontic songs, while a third-grader whose initiative it was played the traditional Pontic lyra.
The initiative to host them in the village came from the local priest and his wife, who is of Ukrainian origin, aided by the Pella educational directorate for grade schools, represented by its director Nikos Angelidis, who told state-run news agency AMNA that “teachers welcomed children with love and (regional) families opened their homes for them.”
[AMNA]
