Thessaloniki, GreeceAP —
One person was killed and several others injured in three pre-dawn incendiary attacks on the homes of members of Greece’s ruling conservative New Democracy party, authorities said Wednesday.
The attack, which took place between 4am and 4:45am outside an apartment building in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, involved a crude explosive device made from a camping gas can. Police said all the injuries were sustained in the last of three attacks in which cars and motorcycles were set on fire.
One of the cars reportedly belonged to Afroditi Nestra, a parliamentary candidate from the New Democracy Party. Nestra suffered burns, but her mother died from her burns in intensive care. Two other residents of the apartment were also hospitalized, police said.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is also the leader of the New Democracy Party, traveled to Thessaloniki on Wednesday afternoon to visit the injured in hospital. Mitsotakis said the death confirmation was “blind violence in public life.”
“The blood and division spilled by extremists will no longer be tolerated,” Mitsotakis said in a written statement. “For the sake of national legitimacy and social unity, now is the time to push terrorism where it belongs: to the periphery!”
The Prime Minister said that Greece had achieved a hard-won economic recovery and had painfully overcome the internal divisions of the past. “It’s never going back,” he added.
Attacks by Greek shadowy armed groups against symbols of power and the property of politicians, police, and other authorities are relatively common. Most cause property damage but no injuries.
In July 2025, a bomb exploded in front of the home of the president of the Greek Guards Association in Thessaloniki. The man was unhurt, but two others suffered minor injuries from broken glass.
In June 2024, a police officer guarding the home of a Supreme Court judge in Athens was injured in a petrol bomb attack.
“The new democratic world will not be exposed to terrorism,” Konstantinos Kiranakis, secretary of the party’s political committee, said in a statement. He said the attack was “a genuine terrorist attack on the home of a member of the New Democracy party,” adding that “the perpetrators’ intent was to kill.”
“I would like those who have cultivated a culture of tolerance for political violence for many years to consider their responsibility,” Kiranakis said.
