Firebomb attacks in northern Greek city target residences of governing party members, injuring 5

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Three pre-dawn firebomb attacks targeting the residences of members of Greece’s governing conservative New Democracy party have left five people hospitalized, with one in critical condition, authorities said Wednesday.

The attacks between 4 a.m. and 4:45 a.m. outside apartment buildings in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki used crude explosive devices made with camping gas canisters. All the injuries were sustained from the last of the three attacks, where cars and motorcycles were set ablaze, police said.

One of the cars reportedly was owned by a parliamentary candidate for the New Democracy party, Afroditi Nestora. Nestora and both her parents were hospitalized, with her mother in critical condition in an intensive care unit. Two other residents in the apartment building were also hospitalized, police said.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who also heads New Democracy, traveled to Thessaloniki to visit the injured in hospital Wednesday afternoon. He said the party members targeted had suffered a “cowardly, murderous attack.”

The prime minister said Nestora’s mother was intubated.

“I would like once again to repeat that violence has no place in an organized society , and those who would wear the cloak of social struggle to carry out such acts are nothing but mere criminals,” Mitsotakis said. “They will be dealt with as such.”

Attacks by shadowy Greek militant groups against symbols of power or the property of politicians, police or other authority figures are relatively frequent. Most cause material damage but no injuries.

In July 2025, a bomb exploded outside the Thessaloniki home of the president of Greece’s association of prison guards. He was unharmed but two other people suffered minor injuries from shattered glass.

In June 2024, a police officer guarding the home of a top judge in Athens was injured in a gasoline bomb attack.

“The world of New Democracy will not be terrorized,” the party’s political committee secretary Konstantinos Kyranakis said in a statement. The attacks “were a proper terrorist attack on the homes of New Democracy members,” he said, adding that “those who carried it out aimed to kill.”

“Let those who, for years, have cultivated a culture of tolerance towards political violence reflect on their responsibilities,” Kyranakis said.

___

Elena Becatoros in Athens contributed to this report.