国际英语资讯:Feature: Residents of fire-stricken resorts near Athens protest delays in reconstruction_时事

国际英语资讯:Feature: Residents of fire-stricken resorts near Athens protest delays in reconstruction

His home was destroyed by the blaze and he is one of the people still accommodated in camps.

"We are not illegal, it is not our fault that we are fire stricken," he said, referring to the debate that started in the wake of the destruction on the residents' share of the blame.

Government officials and experts said that many of the houses in Mati and Kineta had been built without proper licenses and urban planning and many victims were trapped in narrow streets leading to dead ends, as the exits to the sea were blocked by summer homes.

People who gathered outside the ministry on Thursday insisted that all this talk was fake news and most of them had built their homes with licenses and were paying all relevant taxes to the state for decades.

"So many years that we were there and we were paying all this money for electricity, water, municipality fees, real property tax, other taxes, transfers, contracts, everything, we were not illegal. We were good, because we were paying the state. It is time the state paid for us," Antonis Petridis, member of the coordinating committee of Kineta residents told Xinhua.

"We are hearing only words, but they should turn them into actions. There are fire-stricken people today who are homeless and are sleeping once here, the next time elsewhere. They are being fed at soup kitchens. This must end. They should give a solution," he said.

"We have been abandoned at the mercy of God. After the fire, floods came and all homes flooded, they were all damaged, including those which had not been affected by the fire," Lefteris Papatheodorou, another Kineta resident, told Xinhua.