Meet the woman helping animals abandoned in Greece’s wildfire inferno

Meet the woman helping animals abandoned in Greece’s wildfire inferno
By Chris Harris
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Artemis Kyriakopoulou is hunting for pets left behind in Greece's wildfire disaster.

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“What makes you come here is your will to call yourself a human being,” student Artemis Kyriakopoulou told Euronews.

She was speaking about her initiative to organise volunteers to hunt for animals left behind during Greece’s deadly wildfires.

Kyriakopoulou, 21, set up a Facebook group in the days after the disaster, which has left at least 91 people dead.

It quickly gained members and volunteers have been roaming devastated areas looking for any pets in need of help.

One of Kyriakopoulou’s most high-profile discoveries was that of an injured dog in a house ravaged by flames in Mati.

“You can’t not help, be it humans or animals,” Kyriakopoulou told Euronews.

“You know that here, somewhere, you have these souls that are helpless. You can’t leave them like that.

“I don’t know, I think it’s everyone’s duty.”

Not all animals made it.

Laurence Lefrançois, a French national living in Rafina, told Euronews she found lots of dead turtles in the fire’s aftermath.

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