The death of Vangelis Giakoumakis, found dead on Sunday with a knife by his side in a marshy field near the Dairy School of Ioannina where he had been studying, has shocked public opinion.

Details of the young man’s life at the school have brought the issue of bullying to the fore. The student’s funeral in the village of Seli, Crete, on Wednesday was followed a protest hundreds of kilometers away by some 500 people outside the dairy school in the evening.

Riot police arrived at the site as people shouted, “It wasn’t suicide, it was murder!”

Earlier, a demonstration had taken place through the center of Katsika, the semi-rural suburb southwest of Ioannina where the school is located.

On Tuesday evening, thousands gathered outside Ioannina City Hall for a candlelight vigil to honor the dead student who took his life at the age of 20. Ioannina’s Mayor Thomas Bengos gave them a book in which to express their condolensces.