While Turkey commended Greece for sending aid and recovery teams during a deadly earthquake that brought a temporary pause in provocations, three Greek journalists who went there to cover the tragedy said that their cameras and mobile equipment were destroyed by Diyanet, the religious authority.

According to a report by Balkan Insight (BIRN), photojournalists Kyriakos Finas and Konstantinos Zilos, and reporter Viktoras Antonopoulos, who are freelancers, went to Turkey to report on the tragedy that killed more than 50,000 people and had received official journalistic accreditation from the Turkish state, which is trying to stifle independent media.

They said that they went to a mass grave in the Narlica district in Turkey’s Hatay province that was devastated by the earthquakes, guided by Turkish soldiers, who said they should follow a car where two Turks and a German journalist were riding, headed to an area where they could take photos freely.

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Zilos had reached the field where victims of the earthquake had been buried when his colleagues called and informed him they could not enter the area. Then, two men in blue vests who were allegedly workers for the Diyanet asked Zilos to follow them, the report said.

Read more: The National Herald