A couple of American tourists of Greek origin were attacked with a knife at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens on Tuesday shortly after the opening of the busy site, Greek police said, with media reports referring to the gesture as an unbalanced person.
According to the Greek police, a man attacked this couple with a knife around 8:05 a.m. local time (5:05 a.m. GMT), five minutes after the opening of the gates of the archaeological site which records, at the peak of summer, some 17,000 visitors per day on average.
He slightly injured the 48-year-old woman in the hand while the 53-year-old man was more seriously injured in the leg. Both were hospitalized, but are out of danger, reports the Greek news agency Ana.
According to a witness, a tourist from the Netherlands interviewed by AFP and who requested anonymity, it was a lone man who committed the attack while “people were waiting in line”.
“The man knocked down the attacker who had attacked his wife, they rolled into the bushes,” she added. “She was on the ground with injuries (…)” when other people came to help her husband to control the attacker, she said.
“I was there with the woman (attacked) and her children, they were all panicked,” she added.
Motorized police officers arrived quickly on the scene, applied a tourniquet to the man to stop the bleeding and immobilized the attacker, who was then arrested, according to the Greek agency.
According to Greek media, the perpetrator of the attack, a man in his sixties, suffers from psychological problems, and had already been arrested in the past for contempt and carrying a bladed weapon.
Greek justice had ordered his internment in a psychiatric establishment on several occasions, reveals the information site News247.
The Acropolis Hill, which houses the Parthenon, a temple from the 5th century BC, is the most visited site in Greece. In 2025, 4.6 million tourists went there, according to the national statistics office, with attendance increasing each year.
