The Greek Meteorological Authority expected today (Saturday) that the temperature will exceed 40 degrees Celsius in some areas during the weekend in light of a heat wave.
Data from the National Observatory in Athens showed that “a new slight rise in temperatures will be recorded in Greece during the weekend.” The observatory added, "Conditions similar to a heat wave will prevail in several areas until the middle of next week."
The highest temperature levels will reach between 38 and 40 degrees, while locally in some areas it may reach 41 to 42 degrees Celsius.
The Greek Meteorological Authority reported that “the air masses over Greece will be between 6 and 8 degrees hotter than normal levels for this season.”
An altitude of 1500 meters is used to study temperature changes in the lower part of the atmosphere.
Although high temperatures are common in Greece during the summer months, this summer did not witness long-term heat waves like those recorded in the countries of northern and western Europe.
The temperature reached 42 degrees during the first heat wave that occurred in mid-July and lasted for three days, according to Agence France-Presse.
On Friday, a team of gravediggers began burying some of the dead from dozens of migrants who died during a mass crossing attempt to the Spanish-occupied enclave of Ceuta, located in northern Morocco, three weeks ago, in the presence of about a dozen journalists and a small number of local residents.
A Muslim cleric chanted a short prayer as diggers, wearing protective clothing and masks, lowered the first four bodies wrapped in white burial bags into brick-lined graves side by side in a Muslim cemetery in Ceuta, where specially designed vehicles brought more bodies, Reuters reported.
Saeed Muhammad, the acting director of the cemetery, said that the plan is to bury about 70 bodies in the coming days, at a rate of 10 to 12 per day.
He added that about 95 percent of those being buried have not yet been identified, but each grave has been marked with a numbered stone in anticipation of the appearance of someone demanding to reveal any body in order to return it to its homeland in the end.
Authorities say between 5,000 and 8,000 people remain in Ceuta after at least 72,000 crossed from Morocco on July 30 in a migrant influx in which 82 were killed on the Spanish side of the border, with Morocco confirming the deaths of 14 others.
Muhammad said that the immigrants were buried according to Islamic rituals, which require that the body be placed in the direction of the direction of prayer in Mecca and covered with dirt.
The latest data issued by a Ceuta court showed that the authorities were able to identify only six migrants, all of them adult Moroccan men.
Relatives of missing Moroccan immigrants are still seeking information about their families through appeals on social media and pressure on officials at the border.
Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Atoche of the Civil Guard, who heads the police crime division and leads a team of nine officers sent to Ceuta, said the migrants' fingerprint data was matched with Spanish and Moroccan databases, and their DNA samples were compared with those of relatives who came forward to ask about their relatives.
He added that one of the main reasons for the low number of identification cases is the difficulty faced by Moroccan relatives in crossing legally into Ceuta to submit DNA samples at an office set up by the Spanish authorities near the border.
Nearly two weeks after a march loaded with explosives was found inside Leipzig Airport, German Interior Minister Alexander Dorbent announced that German authorities last year found weapons buried in a forest in Berlin, believed to have been used to carry out assassinations in Germany.
While Durbent refused to name the party responsible for the alleged operations, saying only that the involvement of “external parties” could not be ruled out, German newspapers quoted internal intelligence sources as believing that Russia was behind this plan.
Berlin is seeking to extradite a suspect who investigators believe is responsible for burying weapons and planning to use them in assassinations. He was arrested in Romania last October and is still imprisoned there. Romania also accuses him of planning terrorist operations.
The Minister of Interior expressed his belief that there were concrete plans to use these weapons, without specifying them. He added that investigators hoped to identify the people who were “potential recipients” of the weapons, but the surveillance did not yield results because “no one came to receive them.” Analysts believe that those responsible for the plot knew about the police operation, especially after the arrest of a suspect in Romania, and refrained from coming to receive the weapons.
The Interior Minister warned that the level of threat across the country was “high,” that the discovery of these weapons “was not an isolated incident,” and that espionage and sabotage operations had become “part of the reality” in Germany. He said: “Hybrid threat scenarios affect us in various forms, and this means that we always have to remain vigilant, as we successfully confront hybrid threats.”
German media reported that police found the weapons in a forest located between Berlin and the neighboring state of Brandenburg, after receiving “information” from an unidentified source.
Secret weapons caches in West Germany were part of the Soviet Union's routine during the Cold War.
According to a report on the “Tages Show” program on German Channel 1, which was the first to reveal the story before the Minister of the Interior confirmed it, Russian intelligence services have in recent years been using such important hideouts, which are often located in natural areas or near prominent landmarks, to conduct exchanges of what are known as “illegal agents,” which are Russian spies living in the West under false identities.
Vasily Mitrokhy, a former officer and defector in the Russian intelligence service (KGB), has already revealed the role played by these weapons caches during the Soviet era. He said that Moscow was making adapted preparations to move inside West Germany in the event of a crisis that would involve NATO.
Military facilities, weapons manufacturing sites, and critical infrastructure were then considered major targets for Moscow. According to what was reported by the “Tages Show” program, the materials stored in those sites included weapons and communications equipment, in addition to explosives that were intended to attack railway infrastructure in the event of a conflict.
The head of domestic intelligence, Sinan Selin, constantly warns of Russia's efforts to carry out operations inside Germany, including assassinating Russian opponents and supporters of Ukraine, and targeting the heads of weapons factories.
The suspect who was arrested in Romania, and whose nationality was not revealed, was part of an operation that targeted 8 other people in Romania and Poland, who were accused of planning to send explosive devices to Ukraine. Of these, 3 hold Ukrainian citizenship.
Two weeks ago, German authorities found a drone loaded with explosives that was prepared to explode near a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig Airport. Investigators said the explosives did not detonate due to a malfunction in the trigger. Although Germany has not yet accused any party of the operation, American media quoted US intelligence as assessing that Russia is responsible for the failed operation. German investigators are trying to find the operator of the drone, which they believe was located inside Germany and operating it from a distance of a few kilometers.
