NYC Couple, Brother and Pregnant Partner Identified Among Four Killed in Greece

The four Americans killed in a devastating explosion that destroyed a residential building in Greece have been identified, as their grieving families seek answers about the tragedy.

For Klajd Hoxha, 31, Friday began like any other morning.

His siblings, Florida and Florin, were due to fly from Athens to New York that afternoon. Then their parents received a devastating phone call.

At about 7.30am, an explosion tore through and demolished the two-story Airbnb the siblings had rented in Plaka. Six people were killed.

Florin, 36, had been staying at the property with his longtime partner, Eris Cani, 39.

His sister Florida, 34, was visiting Greece to celebrate her marriage to Ian Kirkpatrick, 37. The couple had wed just 25 days before the disaster.

‘We heard a call from the US Embassy in Greece. The call came to my parents and Eris’s parents,’ Klajd told Our News Outlet.

‘I immediately got in the car… I was reading, just trying to, kind of, deal with the despair, the pain, the anxiety.’

All four family members were checked in for their flight home at around 3pm that day. But when Klajd contacted Delta, the airline confirmed that none of them had boarded.

Klajd, his fiancée Cindy and his parents, along with Eris’s parents and Ian’s brother, booked flights to Athens that night, holding on to ‘a lot of hope.’

‘I remained hopeful that, you know, people have survived tsunamis, earthquakes, bigger things under rubble… but it was a lot of fear and a lot of sadness,’ he said.

‘It was immense sadness. I was tremendously close with my siblings. We grew up together. I worked with my brother every day. We spoke every day…. There was a connection that was really just unparalleled.’

As they prepared to land in Greece, Cindy turned to Klajd and said, ‘I wanted to look you in the eye and tell you the truth.’ Two Americans had been confirmed dead beneath the collapsed building.

‘I went to the bathroom for ten minutes… I just said, regretfully, I hate you, God. I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. And I stayed there saying that,’ he continued.

The anxious family met with officials from the US Embassy in Greece, who heartbreakingly told them that their loved ones had ‘most likely’ been killed in the explosion.

‘We kind of understood, you know, this is real. It’s not a movie. It’s not a nightmare or anything… It’s real life,’ Klajd said.

Around him, his family burst into tears and they screamed silently in despair feeling the ‘pure devastation’ of losing their loved ones. 

‘I mean, I’ve lost two of my siblings and two of my siblings-in-law, essentially my half of my family. It’s now more than half of my family,’ he continued, noting that his love for Greek tragedy films felt ‘kind of ironic’ as he stood there in grief. 

Klajd said the four had gone on the trip as part of a nearly annual vacation for Florin and Eris, and he himself had been invited to go with his fiancé. 

‘I might have been on this trip as well and might have been, you know, it’s a devastating thought to even think about, at least from my parents perspective, I just say I can’t, I can’t imagine what they would would have done, you know?’ he added. 

The heartbroken brother said his older brother was expecting to welcome his first child in just a few months. 

‘Florin and Eris have been together for a long time. They never really wanted a wedding. But Eris was pregnant, she was five months pregnant expecting their first child, a daughter,’ Klajd said. ‘My future niece.’ 

Florida and Ian had married just less than a month before the incident where their family ‘celebrated their love and joy,’ before they had gone on a ‘mini-moon’ to Mexico. 

The grief-stricken brother said he had spoken to his siblings just the night before, and their family had been in touch with all four of them all week. 

‘Both my parents spoke to them every day. Eris’s parents spoke to her every day,’ he added. 

US Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle announced on Saturday that she was ‘deeply saddened’ to learn that the US tourists were killed on Friday in Athens. 

‘My thoughts and prayers are with the families and the loved ones of those killed and injured in this horrific incident. Our hearts are with them during this difficult time. I extend my deepest appreciation to the Greek first responders who worked tirelessly at the scene,’ Guilfoyle wrote. 

‘The US Embassy is providing consular assistance and support to the victims’ families.’

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Guilfoyle spoke with Klajd and his family, personally offering her condolences, the brother, who praised the embassy for being ‘unbelievable and so helpful and so caring and so human,’ said. 

Local authorities are still investigating the devastating incident last week. It is believed that the explosion was sparked by a gas leak on the building’s second floor. 

‘We’ve read that there was reports that there was a smell of gas for months or a year,’ Klajd continued. 

‘But the fire chief himself has, in a very human way, said, we don’t have answers for you right now, but we are looking at all the debris and all the rubble and we are trying to understand what happened. And we’re trying to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anybody,’ he added.

A 78-year-old man and his wife, a 77-year-old woman, lived on the second floor and had been seen on their balcony minutes before the blast struck. 

The couple were later identified by The National Herald as British national Edmond Hinks and his Greek wife, Athena Papareskou.

They had lived in the apartment, which had a view of the Acropolis, and were married for 11 years, according to the outlet. 

Their apartment is at the center of the investigation as it is believed that the blast originated from the second floor, which was the only floor with an active natural gas supply, the Herald reported. 

TV footage showed a convoy of yellow ambulances crammed into the narrow street on Friday morning. 

One by one, rescue workers emerged from the ruins carrying stretchers, each bearing a body covered in silver foil, as onlookers watched on in silence.

Around 30 firefighters and six vehicles, including elite units from Greece’s EMAK disaster squad, combed through rubble of concrete slabs.

Just hours after the explosion ripped through the street, firefighters rescued two women in a neighboring building. Both were taken to hospital by ambulance.

Klajd said his older brother Florin was his ‘best friend’ who taught him about everything. 

‘He was just what you perfectly picture as an older brother; who yells at you but loves you the very next minute,’ he said. 

Florin had co-founded the Westchester-based construction company Prufrock Builders with Klajd, his brother told Our News Outlet. 

Eris, a clinical infectious diseases pharmacist and Assistant Professor at Touro College of Pharmacy, was said to be a ‘gentle, gentle soul.’

‘She loved not just our family, but everybody,’ Klajd added.

He went on to describe his sister Florida as ‘one of the brightest stars of a human being I’ve ever met.’

‘She was a senior attorney at NILAG, which is a nonprofit, and she dedicated her entire legal career to helping people of unfortunate means… she dedicated herself to helping people,’ he said. 

As part of their Albanian-American family, Florida also worked to help the Albanian community and was the president of Albanian Professional Entrepreneurs Networking.

‘She brought a lot of people together,’ Klajd said. ‘She’s helped so many people and she was just an incredible human being, caregiver and a person who would lend her ears to everybody who needed them.’

‘She would put feelings aside to help other people, and she deserved more in her life in terms of years.’

Florida’s husband, Ian, was an ‘outstanding, funny, charismatic, intelligent’ and ‘wonderful’ person who worked as Vice President of the Japanese company Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

‘He was actually, being that we are of Albanian descent, he was actually undertaking the task of learning Albanian so he could speak to our grandmother and to our relatives outside of the US, which he had done very well in,’ Klajd continued. 

‘Albanian is a very difficult language to learn, but he had undertaken it, and he found it as just a form of respect for the person he loved.’

Klajd, who remains in Athens, said all four of their bodies of their loved ones have been recovered in unclear conditions. 

‘We’re just waiting on the clearance to bring them home,’ he said. 

‘We’ve been made aware from the US ambassador that the Greek authorities and the fire department are taking this with the utmost seriousness. Not because we are angry, I mean grief is anger. Grief is a lot of things. But more so we’re not blaming anybody.’

‘We just want a little bit of peace as to what has happened exactly. It’s devastating, truly,’ he added.