Greece, Ukraine discuss plight of war-hit ethnic Greeks

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis attends a Sunday service at the Patriarchal Church of St. George in Istanbul, Turkey, March 13, 2022. (Reuters)

• Ethnic Greek community leader Alexandra Prochenko-Pitsatzi: ‘Communities... where over 15,000 ethnic Greeks live are surrounded by the enemy, without the possibility of evacuation’
• Alexandra Prochenko-Pitsatzi: ‘We ask the global community, the Greeks of the world, to react’

ATHENS: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday said he had spoken to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky about the “dramatic” conditions facing Greece’s ethnic minority in war-hit southeastern Ukraine.
The two leaders discussed “the need to open a humanitarian corridor for safe exit and access for humanitarian supplies,” the Greek PM’s office said in a statement.
Greece’s consul general in Mariupol is among those trapped in the city, Mitsotakis said.
Athens last month said nearly a dozen members of the Greek minority of over 100,000 dating to the 18th century had died, blaming Russian attacks.
On Sunday, an ethnic Greek community leader sent an open letter calling for help, claiming a “genocide of Greeks in Ukraine by the Russian Federation” was underway.
“Communities... where over 15,000 ethnic Greeks live are surrounded by the enemy, without the possibility of evacuation,” Alexandra Prochenko-Pitsatzi said in the letter.
“We ask the global community, the Greeks of the world, to react,” she said.
Greece has strongly backed sanctions on Russia and sent lethal aid and medicine to Ukraine.
Over 9,300 Ukrainian refugees have fled to friends and relatives in Greece, a third of them children.
The Greek leftist parliamentary party MeRA25 this week said “fascist” irregulars in Azov working with the Ukrainian army were extorting “huge” bribes to refrain from shooting civilians attempting to flee to Russia
“Greeks in Mariupol are bombed and terrorized from both warring sides,” the party said.