Four more suspicious envelopes sent to Greek universities
Greek Police (ELAS) was on high alert on Thursday after four more suspicious envelopes turned up in Corfu, Volos, Crete and the polytechnical school campus in the district of Zografou, in Athens.
All parcels were addressed to local universities and appeared to have been sent from India.
A parcel of “suspicious toxicity” was found shortly after 11 a.m. at the post office in Corfu, state-run news agency ANA-MPA reported.
The area around the post office was sealed off by policemen, fire fighters and teams from the Civil Protection authority.
Customers and employees who were inside the post office were placed in quarantine until authorities can establish whether the parcel contains a dangerous substance, the news agency said.
The suspicious envelope, which has not been opened, was addressed to the Ionian University.
Shortly after, University of Volos Rector Zisis Mamouris contacted authorities after seeing he had received a similar parcel from India.
In Crete, the Rector of the University, Odysseas-Ioannis Zoras, said he found a similar envelope on Wednesday night which he opened and saw it contained flyers on Islam. He threw it away, but called police on Thursday after learning about the parcels sent to other universities.
This development follows a similar incident in Lesvos on Wednesday, where seven people were hospitalized in a hospital in Mytilene as a precaution after coming in contact with an unknown powder found inside an envelope received by administrative staff at the University of the Aegean.
The suspicious package was addressed to the Rector of the university, Chryssi Vitsilaki.
After opening the envelope, several employees developed rashes on their mouth and nose which later subsided.
The patients included five administrative employees, the university’s legal adviser and the policeman who was called in to receive the envelope.
The parcel was transported with a military airplane to the General Chemical State Laboratory in Athens which is investigating the substance.
