Another femicide shocked Greece after a man killed his wife with a hammer and hid her body in an Athens attic for a whole week.
Emergency police rushed to an apartment in Athens’ Ambelokipi district on Thursday evening after a man called to report that he had murdered his wife.
Upon arriving, officers found the 39-year-old man in the apartment, who told them that his wife’s body was in the attic.
According to sources, police officers detected a putrid smell in the house and found black bags with the corpse in the attic.
The man reportedly confessed to the femicide by striking his wife on the head with a hammer, saying that the murder occurred a week earlier, on November 28.
Two more femicide cases in November
In early November two women were added to Greece’s long list of femicide victims.
43-year-old Theodora Nastouli, a mother of three, was shot dead by her 30-year-old former partner in the center of Western Greece’s Agrinio town. The man, who confessed the killing to his sister over the phone while he was on the run, was arrested a day later. A gun loaded with nine bullets, a knife and another 21 bullets were found in his possession.
Nastouli named her killer before she succumbed to the deadly gunshot wound inflicted by her former partner.
Hours later, a 41-year-old woman named Garyfallia succumbed to her wounds after she was viciously beaten by her 49-year-old partner on November 4 in the coastal city of Patra in eastern Peloponnese. The couple had briefly met at a hotel and her partner left the meeting first.
As soon as Garyfallia came out afterward, her partner, who had been waiting outside, punched her in the face and kicked her in the head.
Femicides and domestic violence surge in Greece
Femicides in Greece hit a new record in 2024, marking a 100 percent increase compared to 2023, when six femicides were recorded, while cases of domestic violence are surging.
According to Hellenic Police data, 15 cases of domestic violence are recorded in the country of 11 million every day. In the first five months of 2024, police responded to 2,157 cases of domestic violence and arrested 1,357 perpetrators. 2,000 women (out of 7,000 beneficiaries) have opted to install the panic button on their mobile phones.
The high-profile case of Caroline Crouch in 2021 brought the issue of femicide to national attention.
The 28-year-old’s death triggered new calls by left-wing opposition parties for femicide, the killing of women or girls with a gender-related motivation, to be recognized as a distinct term in Greece’s criminal code.
In 2022, Greece introduced the panic button, a digital application that instantly allows one to sound an alert for help if one finds oneself in a difficult situation.
The panic button sends a short text message to police in instances in which family violence is associated with a threat or danger to life and physical integrity. The purpose is immediate intervention by the police force.
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