“The worst is coming, I fear Vendetta like in 1955” – Relative of one of the families speaks to protothema.gr

We met him conscionable aft dawn, astatine 1 of the quietest spots successful Vorizia. The Psiloritis wind blew cold, sweeping the courtyards and the souls, carrying the electrically charged ambiance that has covered the village. On the threshold of his location sits 90-year-old Giannis Fragkiadakis, a venerable figure, with wide eyes and an awake mind, though bushed from what helium has witnessed. A antheral who lived done the large vendetta of 1955, who counted dormant relatives, friends and neighbors, and now, seventy years later, fears that History is preparing to beryllium rewritten successful blood.

Mr. Fragkiadakis, a comparative of members of the household allegedly progressive successful the caller killing, does not mince his words. He speaks with that old, dense Cretan dependable that carries experience, bitterness and fear. “I’m acrophobic we’re going to unrecorded done the aforesaid things again. In ’55 we slaughtered each different implicit a driblet of water, implicit a outpouring up successful the mountain. People were lost, houses were divided, roots were chopped forever. And now, the aforesaid again. Blood is being spilled again for nothing,” helium tells protothema.gr. The aged antheral remembers that epoch vividly: “I was 20 then. I retrieve america gathering the children into the basements, shutting disconnected the lights, lasting defender successful the fields. Whoever took the way to the outpouring risked their life. Men were killed, families destroyed. Back past determination was nary constabulary to enforce order, everyone took justness into his ain hands with the gun. And that’s what I’m acrophobic volition hap again.”

His dependable trembles, not from aged age, but from anxiety. “The colony is acceptable to explode. People are bitter, souls are overloaded. I privation constabulary to come, I privation a curfew aft 9 astatine night. For nary 1 to beryllium out, truthful nary spark is fixed for caller evil. If the authorities don’t travel now, if they don’t instrumentality command, we volition person much dead.” Despite his age, Yiannis Fragkiadakis shows afloat clarity and heavy knowing of what is happening astir him. “Here, successful the mountains, things are different,” helium says. “Honor and one’s connection number much than life. When the spark ignites, you don’t enactment it retired easily. That’s wherefore I’m afraid. I person thing to suffer anymore, but I’m acrophobic for our children and grandchildren.”

When helium speaks astir the ’55 vendetta, his regard darkens. “I saw radical moving drenched successful blood, I heard mothers wailing, houses burning. One colony mourned and the different rejoiced. That’s however it was then. And now? Now the aforesaid happening could hap again. Something could commencement that volition not halt easily.”

He urgently asks for the involution of the authorities and section elders earlier it is excessively late. “Let the omniscient of the spot measurement in, the venerable ones. Let determination beryllium sasmos (reconciliation). Let radical who tin talk to the families beryllium found. Do not fto this slip. I cognize what vendetta means, it is not a game. It is warfare wrong the aforesaid village.”

Closing his shocking testimony, the 90-year-old Cretan leaves a operation hanging: “Stop the evil now. We don’t request much graves successful Vorizia. This onshore has been soaked capable with blood.”