Petritsi

"In a straight line, Bulgaria is less than 500 meters from here," says Panagiotis Savvidis, moving his finger to make me see an imaginary line that reaches the neighboring country. The border region where we find ourselves, a few kilometers outside the village of Petritsi, in Central Macedonia, hides under the raging vegetation the signs of its long and rich military history.

A mayor of one of Thessaloniki's municipalities has highlighted the presence of up to 9,000 wild boars in the area, warning that their number could jump four times that in two years unless measures are taken to control them.

A Thessaloniki court on Wednesday sentenced a 63-year-old supermarket owner from the village of Neo Petritsi, near Serres, to life in prison after finding him guilty of murdering a 53-year-old mother of two with whom he is alleged to have had an affair before throwing her into a mountain ravine.