Greece During a Crisis

Greece went on a debt binge that came crashing to an end in late 2009, provoking an economic crisis that has decimated the country’s economy, brought down its government, unleashed increasing social unrest and threatened the future of the euro. Greece is entering a fifth straight year of recession, its economy poised to shrink another 5 percent in 2012. Years of unrestrained spending, cheap lending and failure to implement financial reforms left Greece badly exposed when the global economic downturn struck. This whisked away a curtain of partly fiddled statistics to reveal debt levels and deficits that exceeded limits set by the eurozone. Average unemployment is at a record 21.8 percent -- with youth unemployment (under 25) at 51 percent. Years of increasingly difficult conditions have hit the citizens of Greece hard, and the uncertainty and frustration have led some to flee, a few to take their own lives. Collected here are images from a nation in the midst of a deepening crisis.