Boy, 17, and wife, 13, found hanged in tree
A northern Greek teenager and his child-bride of six weeks were found dead yesterday after hanging themselves from a tree, apparently in desperation after the youth’s parents insisted that they should divorce. The bodies of the 17-year-old youth and his legal wife, a 13-year-old girl, were discovered by passing construction workers early in the morning dangling next to each other from a tree on a street in their home town of Komotini, in Thrace. Both belonged to the area’s large Muslim minority, where marriages at a young age are not unusual. However, in the case of the teenagers, who were wed a month and a half ago, their families – and in particular the boy’s parents, with whom the couple had been living – entertained strong misgivings. Reports from Komotini said they had pressed their son to divorce his wife, arguing that the jobless couple would be unable to support themselves.
