A man was killed by mistake on Sunday afternoon when he was shot by a fellow member of a group of hunters that was hunting illegally on land belonging to the monastic community of Mount Athos, northern Greece, police said.

Four hunters were arrested after the unnamed 44-year-old from Thessaloniki was shot while the group attempted to hunt wild boar. Their rifles were confiscated.

Police said that the five men had walked from the town of Ouranoupolis and trespassed on Church land, where it is illegal to hunt.

It was not clear what led to the hunter being shot but officers were treating the incident as an accident.

The unnamed hunter was at least the sixth to be killed in such an accident last year.

A 30-year-old man had been shot dead by a fellow hunter just 20 days earlier in Katerini, northern Greece.