The sprawling Greek capital, Athens, is home to nearly half the crisis-hit country’s population.
By WSJ Staff
Scenes of
anguish have become part of daily life around Omonia Square in Athens, as
Greece’s multiple woes have turned the vibrant commercial heart of this
Mediterranean capital into a national symbol of despair and social collapse.
Gordon Fairclough reports on WSJ.com.
All photographs by Francesco Anselmi/Contraso/Redux
Pictures.
Central Omonia Square, once the vibrant commercial heart of Athens, has become a symbol of despair and social collapse. The square and surrounding neighborhoods have been ravaged by Greece’s deep economic downturn and a flood of illegal immigrants.
With unemployment spiking, especially among people under 25, the number of homeless youth is on the rise.
With business and tourism in decline, drug use and prostitution are
flourishing in an area that was once considered the crossroads of Athens.
Police, often young recruits fresh from the police academy, struggle to control crime and clamp down on drug trafficking.
Addicts injecting heroin and other drugs have become a common sight on streets and in alleys around the square.
Budget cuts have undercut the government’s ability to care for people in
need. The homeless sleep on the street and line up for food at an
outdoor soup kitchen.
This Romanian woman, known as Amalia to drug-abuse outreach workers,
died of an apparent blood infection soon after this photo was taken in
an empty lot near the square this autumn.
Paramedics put Amalia into an ambulance.
A couple embrace at night in Omonia Square.
Bangladeshi men, part of a massive wave of migration into Greece from Africa and South Asia, meet at an Indian restaurant.
Gangs of neo-Nazis attack and intimidate migrants. Here, a Bangladeshi
man shows an ultranationalist emblem spray-painted on his door.
Traffickers often hide heroin and other drugs, packed in small spherical packets, in their mouths to avoid detection.
Police officers confront a man they searched with what they said were drugs found on his body.
Officers assigned to a task force combating illegal immigration check documents at a bar near Omonia Square.
A police officer prepares to strip search a detained Bangladeshi man in the bathroom of the Omonia police station.
The officer pushes the Bangladeshi man down on the hardware of the sink, jamming it into his shoulder.
Immigrants live crammed into small flats, many without heat and water.
Here, Muslim migrants gather to pray at an ad hoc mosque to celebrate Eid al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice.
Muslim migrants during Eid al-Adha festivities, which commemorate the
Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his first-born son.
All photographs by Francesco Anselmi/Contraso/Redux Pictures.
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