US Embassy In Athens Comes Under Firebomb Attack Amid Greek BLM Protests
Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/04/2020 – 05:30
More signs that the US George Floyd protests, riots and general contagion of spiraling mayhem are spreading far outside America’s borders:
Demonstrators hurled firebombs in a march towards the U.S. Embassy compound in Athens on Wednesday in a protest over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Reuters journalists saw demonstrators throwing several flaming objects which erupted into flames on the street towards the heavily-guarded embassy in central Athens and police responding with rounds of teargas.
Though like other large European cities, Athens has been prone to youth rioting at the drop of a hat of the past years, it was clear the unrest was in direct spillover of events in US streets.
Demonstrators which surrounded the fortified embassy, further secured with large Greek police buses, held signs with “Black lives matter” and “I can’t breathe” slogans, Reuters reports.
Dramatic footage showed Greek demonstrators charging through police lines in a clearly coordinated effort and then hurling the petrol bombs.
🔥 ATHENES 🔥
L’ambassade américaine vient d’être attaquée à coup de cocktail molotov lors d’une manif #BlackLivesMatter ! #Athens #Athenes pic.twitter.com/faUtbq0F4X— Cerveaux non disponibles (@CerveauxNon) June 3, 2020
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Greek police said the crowd swelled to over 3,000 demonstrators at one point. Police were seen running through flames after multiple firebombs exploded on the ground, but didn’t appear to reach the main embassy building directly.
The attackers managed to get relatively close to the main embassy building:
VIDEO — Greek protesters hurl firebombs at heavily-guarded US embassy in Athens as violent crowd clashes with policehttps://t.co/BhVG2p1Vdq pic.twitter.com/HDo0onrML9
— DAILY SABAH (@DailySabah) June 3, 2020
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Multiple molotov cocktails were thrown, caught on widely circulating social media videos; however, there were no instances of serious perimeter breaches or reported injuries among the police or Marine embassy guard.
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More footage of Wednesday’s chaos on the embassy steps in Athens below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MzQ7X2LrP0?start=90]
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