Air raid shelter

Women in traditional dress carry a version of the Greek flag during a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of Athens' liberation from the Nazi occupation during World War II, at the Acropolis in Athens, on Saturday. The ceremony was attended by political and military officials, as well as members of the public.

The Nordic nation of 5.5 million people has some 50,500 bomb shelters that can fit…4.8 million inhabitants in them, in case of an emergency or an attack!

A network of thousands of underground spaces are scattered beneath Athens. Pedestrians hurry past them, not suspecting that the metal lid of a manhole they have just stepped on is one of the gates to a vast web of spaces, which for decades has been sealed in silence and oblivion.

General Ioannis Metaxas' regime (1936-41) built some 400 bomb shelters in Athens, while it imposed by law the creation of a shelter in every new building, raising the number to 5,500 from 1936 to 1940, author and researcher Konstantinos Kyrimis, who has been recording them for over a decade, tells Kathimerini, citing an official Hellenic Army report.

Newsweek reported the writing of the Russian channel "I can explain" on Telegram, which states that local authorities hide the addresses of air raid shelters from the public and fix them only for government officials and members of the ruling party of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukrainian children began their second straight school year in wartime on Friday, some heading to new classrooms underground, others bracing to run to bomb shelters to take cover from Russian missiles and drones.

Many, at home and abroad, stayed online for a fourth year, their education ravaged by Russia's invasion and Covid-19.

The state of women's shelters in Turkey once again has come under the spotlight after the death of a four-year-old girl in one of the safe houses.