Views, words, movements of students, professors, employees of yesterday Aristotle University of Thessaloniki they looked like they didn’t really understand what had happened. “We could not explain the tragedy of the train derailment at Tempe. “None of us was sure which of the students would not be in the audience, who was injured, whether a friend or acquaintance was missing.” said K. executive director of the flagship institution. It is difficult to describe the frozen sense of tragedy that a classmate, friend, professor experiences when he reflects on the loss of a young man who starts his studies with dreams. Until yesterday, it was unofficially stated that the number of dead students of the educational institution had reached eleven. And the identification of the bodies is not completed …

“Our children”

“They were lost so unfairly and suddenly. Our children, who cannot imagine that they will no longer be among us. Life at AUTH “froze” at the moment of the fatal collision,” said the rector of the institution, Mr. Nikos Papaioannou. Law, architecture, physics, pedagogy, economics, chemistry were among the faculties of Aristotle that lost a student or students. “Good heaven to our children. Condolences and courage to family and friends. Good recovery to the victims,” ​​the parish house management said in a statement.

In particular, how This was reported to K by Mr. Dimitris Kovaios., Vice-Rector for Academic and Student Affairs of AUTI, the deceased students of the institution studied dentistry, law, military medicine, agronomists, agriculture (two), pedagogy, pharmacy, architecture and physics. There was also a missing student about whom the institution was reluctant to provide information for obvious reasons. Among them are two children of institute professors.

26 affected students from faculties – in some cases more than one – electrical engineering, civil engineering, music, mechanical engineering, law, biology, cinema, agriculture, psychology, philology, economics, theology, computer science, chemical engineering. , chem. Of the 26 injured, six students were treated in the intensive care unit of the Larisin hospital until yesterday. “We found them from hospital listings and from reports that we compared with our student records,” Mr Kovaios said. “We are in shock. In the 98 years of AUTH’s existence, we have never lost a student,” he added. Andreas Yannakoudakis told K that “the human factor should not have been the cause of such a tragic event. Those in positions of responsibility, no matter how high they may be, must take responsibility.”

There were no real classes at the institute yesterday. For their part, the student associations of the AUTI departments reported that “now the tears have dried up, and the anger is growing. Anger for the fact that we all got on this train, for the fact that any of us could have been in their place, for the fact that with the dead, the wounded, the missing, we shared the same places, the same dreams, the same anxieties, a lot of beauty and difficult moments. Anger because there are dozens of mothers like ours who have not received a response to the message “when you arrive, send it.” Rage, because we can no longer tolerate that profit will be more important than human life. The least we can do is be on the street, be the voice of the dead.”

Family support

According to Mr. Papaioannou, “Aristoteleio will support in every possible way – morally and practically – the families of the victims, who were also members of our own family. And he will also stand, as befits a public university, to the aid of the state with concrete proposals and projects, so that human error can never again be fatal. The psychologists of our university’s Counseling and Psychological Support Center, as well as a dedicated research team at the 3rd AHEPA Psychiatric Clinic, are at the disposal of every member of the university community to help cope with the shock that has gripped all of us.” Finally, a memorial will be erected inside AUTH to commemorate the students who died.