Greek Minister of Citizen Protection resigns for being on vacation while Greece burns

The Greek Minister of Citizen Protection, Notis Mitarachi, presented his resignation this Friday for “personal reasons” after not having attended the crisis management center this Thursday, in a context in which the country has suffered a wave of particularly devastating fires -that the Government has given the foci under control today-.

The resignation of Mitarakis and the admission of the same by the Greek Prime Minister, Kiriakos Mitsotakis, have been announced in a brief statement collected by the Kathimerini newspaper in its digital edition.

The Minister of Citizen Protection is responsible for the country's public security services, such as the Police, Firefighters or the General Secretariat for Civil Protection itself.

Mitarakis' replacement will be the, until now, Minister of Education, Sports and Religious Affairs, Yiannis Oikonomou, who will be sworn in at a ceremony at the Presidential Palace at 7:00 p.m.

Greece overcomes a historic tragedy

On the other hand, the Greek Minister for Climate Change and Civil Protection, Vasilis Kikilias, announced this Friday that all the fires are now under control after razing the national territory for ten days: a total of 667 outbreaks that have left five dead, counting three civilians and two pilots who died when their tanker plane crashed.

“After 15 days of extreme weather conditions and ten days with more than 600 fires in the country, today is the first day that we are not on alert,” the minister announced at a press conference.

The minister, who has denounced most of the fires as a result of human negligence, has also confirmed 74 firefighters injured during the fight against the fire.

“Most of them were arson, either due to criminal negligence or intent, but the difference with other years has been the climate crisis.. Since 2003 we did not have a map with very high risk categories over five days for so many regions,” he added.