What happened Saturday morning in Vorizia, when his sister fell dead, was recounted by Kostas Fragiadakis. The 56-year-old Evangelia was staying in Chania and had gone to the village where she passed away to attend her father’s memorial service. The funeral of the 56-year-old nurse is scheduled for noon Tuesday, while on Monday, relatives and friends said their last goodbye to 39-year-old Fanouris Kargakis.

“Instead of having a memorial service, we’re going to have a funeral,” he said. “First of all, there are no abbeys in the village, because I heard there are abbeys for Fragiadakis and abbeys for Kargakis. The village is the whole place for the whole world,” Fragiadakis said.

Fragiadakis recounted what happened on Saturday morning when his sister and the 39-year-old man fell dead, claiming it was a “miracle” that two people were killed because while they were taking his sister down the stairs, “someone from the top of the village was shooting at us with a Kalashnikov. The bullets were going over our heads.”

He said that before the incident occurred, he was trying to contact the police, but to no avail, however, saying he did not call the Rapid Response Unit but the Moira police station.

As he claimed, “we received threats today that we will all be executed, grenades will be thrown at us and the like” and stressed that “the tragedy must end here”, making the following request: “do what you can to stop the evil here, this situation cannot go on any longer. You must not. We do not deserve this.

“There was a lot of tension.”

Mr Fragiadakis referred to the explosion that occurred at the house he was renovating: “a house that was preparing to house a family, the children had bought it and were trying to renovate it. They were finishing it, and in a few days, they were going to move in. On Friday night, there was an explosion. I don’t know who did it. There was an explosion. We called the police to come and document the incident. Not to give you details, two police officers came, they came, they recorded, they took some pictures, they saw that the situation was erratic, there was a lot of tension. I think that’s understandable, to see your house destroyed while you’re waiting to get in, but that’s about it. Then two more officers came to help the first two, and then all four left.”

“In the morning, while we were waiting for them to come because of the situation, and even though there was a lot of tension on the part of my family, conversation after conversation, effort after effort, things calmed down a bit. In the morning, the bomb squad came, my brothers, cousins, nephews, nieces, nephews, friends, women, young children came up to the house – I had not come up. I was waiting, and I was with my mother. The registration was done, and when the children left to go down to my mother’s house on the main road in the village, that’s what happened,” he added.

“Shooting blindly”

“The testimonies are that a car, the dead man’s – in the village we have two dead and we are all mourning for two, it is a great pity – was coming at high speed and my elder brother, whom I trust completely because I was not in front, tried to get our people to the side of the road to get down the stairs. The ladder is not wide; at most, two people can get down it. Some women and children came down, not everyone made it,” Fragiadakis continues.

“The car drove past with the driver having his hand out with the gun, shooting blindly at people, resulting in my sister losing her life, my other sister being injured, and two of my nephews being injured. My nephews, I guess my nephews retaliated in their attempt to defend themselves, and this resulted in the second death. The first dead was my sister,” he noted.

“Pure homicide”

He said, “as soon as I heard the gunshots, I ran to see what was going on, and the first thing I saw was my sister on the tarmac.” “I wanted to think she was passed out. I was trying to get her between the gunfire. I pulled her and her young son; we pulled her down the stairs in a hurry to get her into a car to take her to the hospital. While we were taking her down the ladder, we were being shot at by someone from the top of the village with a Kalashnikov. The bullets went over our heads. That we had two dead, I can say it’s a miracle. We took my sister and took her to the hospital with a nephew of mine. I held her in my arms, hoping she would come to. In the end, my sister was dead. Despite what they said in the first few days, she didn’t die of a heart attack but of a gunshot wound. It is pure homicide,” he said.

“Desperate attempts to contact the police”

“On Saturday morning, I had made desperate attempts to contact the ELAS. An automated message was going out on the phone, referring me to the duty officer. I was calling the squadrons. My mistake may have been not calling 911. I didn’t think about it at the time. I called too many times, but no one answered. I made attempts, but I didn’t get anywhere, unfortunately. I tried in many ways, other people tried to avoid the situation, and we didn’t succeed. We didn’t have the strength, it seems. Those who had the strengths were absent,” Mr Fragiadakis noted.

“They responded.”

“In my people’s attempt to protect themselves, they responded the moment they saw my sister fall and the others injured. They responded. My people did not go to attack; they came to the house and what happened happened,” he said.

“Threats”

“At some point, reason must prevail; there must be prudence. The point is that the tragedy should end here, not continue. It is terrible what has happened. Two people lost, three people injured, some will go to jail, some will have their homes torn apart. And that’s not enough; we have threats on top of that. Today we received too many threats. We didn’t threaten anyone. I didn’t accuse anybody. I don’t know about most of the people. We might be from the same place, but I don’t know them; we don’t hang out. I can’t accuse anyone, and I don’t want to. That’s for the police to do. We received threats today that they’re going to shoot us all, throw grenades, and stuff like that. I wasn’t told by someone on the other side; I heard it from intermediaries. There are always people who pass on information,” Fragiadakis said.

As for his sister, Evangelia, he described her as “giving” and “an extraordinary creature”. “There was no such girl. Too bad. An innocent soul was lost,” he added.