Family of Rhodes man whose body was swept to Turkey accuses consulate employee of tactlesness
The family of a 53-year-old schoolteacher whose body was found washed up on the shore of the Turkish Datca Peninsula on Tuesday after he went missing in deadly flash floods in Rhodes last week, said that an employee at the Greek Consulate in Izmir demanded a payment of 500 euros just minutes after Costas Argyropoulos’s sister identified his body.
Argyropoulos’s family was accompanied to Izmir by Symi Mayor Eleftherios Papakalodoukas in order to identify the body and arrange for its transfer back to Greece for burial.
Papakalodoukas told local media on Thursday that an employee at the consulate behaved tactlessly when she demanded payment for the coffin in which Argyropoulos’s body would be transported.
He has reportedly requested that the 500 euros is returned to the family by the regional authority of the Dodecanese.