In search of `missing` from Dikomo and Kochatis…

In search of `missing` from Dikomo and Kochatis…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Τel: 00 357 99 966518 0090 542 853 8436   On a sunny morning of these winter days, we travel to the village Dikomo to look at some possible burial sites of some `missing persons` from the village… The witness is from this village, a Greek Cypriot who grew up here and who knew everyone… He guides us to our first stop, a house that does not exist anymore because it was demolished but you can still see the walls… `This was the house of Maritsa Christofi Netou` he says… `She had been living with her brother Kiriakos Strati. Kiriakos could only walk with the help of a cane, he would walk very slowly…` He holds a book in his hands about Dikomo and he finds the photo of Maritsa and shows it to me: A typical Cypriot village woman, sitting down, surrounded by some youngsters, probably her relatives or co-villagers. `She was the natural dentist of the village` he tells me, `she used to take out our shaky teeth when we were children… She had one long fingernail and with the help of that, she would take out our teeth and put salt in the wound so it would stop bleeding…` Maritsa and Kiriakos are `missing` from their house in Dikomo… Next to the demolished house is another house that looks new: `This was the house of her daughter` our witness explains. According to our witness, both Maritsa and Kiriakos were killed in the demolished house and then buried under an almond tree in their yard. We go in the yard and find the almond tree… `A team of Turkish Cypriot policemen were sent from Kyrenia Boghazi to Dikomo and they killed those who remained behind, back in 1974` he says. We move in the same street to the place of another demolished house: Not even a stone has remained, all cleaned up… `Here` he says, `used to live Yakumi Petrou who had been born in 1910… So he was around 64 years old in 1974. He has been killed here…` But our witness has no information whether he had been buried here or elsewhere… We walk in the narrow streets of Dikomo, the sun shining on us and you notice that Dikomo is so green: In the gardens of the houses we pass by, we notice the lovely trees and flowers… We stop at another point where yet, another demolished house used to exist – now another makeshift construction has taken its place… `This was the house of Christalla Nikola Christofi` he says, `she was paralysed so she could not move. She was killed in her house and was buried in her yard… This is the information I have…` I feel sad hearing all these stories and more and more, this village starts to remind me of Kythrea… Kythrea had the same story: Killing paralysed or very old people, killing those who could not or did not try to escape the war… From Kythrea there are 49 `missing persons` and with the help of my readers and Maria Georgiadou who is also the relative of four `missing persons`, we managed to find two `missing` old men from Kythrea… Dikomo, similarly has 45 `missing persons`, some from inside the village, some during fighting in the war in other areas. We move yet to another house in another part of Dikomo… `Here` says our witness, `used to live a father, a mother and a daughter. They were old. The daughter was paralysed. They were all killed and buried under that electricity poll. The daughter's name was Eleni, she had been born in 1909, the mother was Mirofora and was born in 1892 and the father was Pantelis Zotis – he had been born in 1889…` We go to the centre of the village then, to sit in the main coffee shop and have some coffee. An old man with blue eyes and a cane sits with his hat on, a small branch of basil tucked behind his ear… He is from Louroudjina I learn. There are people in this village from Kochatis, Dali and Agios Sozomenos… Most of those we meet can speak Greek… A bearded man does not speak but looks at us with sad eyes… He gets up and leaves… After he leaves, one of his friends says to me, `He is sad because his brother is missing since 1964. His brother, together with another Turkish Cypriot had gone from their village to Nisou to buy cigarettes. They were on bicycles. They were kidnapped by some Greek Cypriots who were also `active` in the kidnapping of the young shepherd from Agios Sozomenos, Fikret and killed him – his remains were found in a riverbed around Alambra village. One of those who kidnapped both Fikret and Cemal and Huseyin had been a Greek Cypriot policeman, acting like a `Rambo` in the area… We heard that this policeman died recently of cancer. There is no news of Cemal Mustafa and Huseyin Ibrahim since December 1963 and their remains have not been found… His brother feels very sad… The family is in so much pain, waiting all these years for the remains of these two `missing` Turkish Cypriots to be found… But nothing has happened and it's 49 years since they are waiting… Almost half a century… This is very cruel…` The coffee I drink will coil like a snake in my stomach after hearing about Maritsa and the others `missing` from Dikomo, as well as Cemal and Huseyin `missing` from Nisou… They too were innocent people, one of them engaged to be married soon… Cemal Huseyin was engaged to Aysel, who had been pregnant for two months, they were finishing the construction of their house in Kochati village when her fiancée went `missing`. The Greek Cypriot policeman, a sergeant in the area who kidnapped Cemal and Huseyin with his friends had been also terrorizing Nisou village and a Greek Cypriot of Nisou would warn his co-villagers, the Turkish Cypriots to flee since the policeman was planning on kidnapping some other young Turkish Cypriots of Nisou. So Turkish Cypriots would leave Nisou and go and live as refugees in the nearby Louroudjina, after Cemal and Huseyin had gone `missing`, out of fear for the lives of their own children and youngsters as well… We leave the coffee shop to go yet to a fifth possible burial site that our witness will show us: There had been a house behind the trees of the Panayia Church of the village – we search and find the area and our witness shows us the place where Stavros and Annesou Chatallos, an old couple, might have been buried… `What happened in 1964 in this village?` I ask the witness. `We had to create spots to try to guard our village in case there was an attack from Ortakeuy, Geunyeli or Aghirda` he says… `What happened in 1974 during the coup?` I ask him. `We lost two` he says… `Andreas Menikou, whose nickname was `Daskalos` (`Teacher`) was killed in a restaurant in Syncyari while eating and drinking by some people from EOKA-B. Andreas had been a supporter of Makarios. Kostas Sotiriou, a fireman who had been a good friend of Andreas Menikou was also killed. One of the friends of Kostas Sotiriou was forced by EOKA-B to kill him…` Together with us on this trip to Dikomo are Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, as well as two Turkish Cypriot investigators working for the committee. We leave Dikomo, once a beautiful, quiet village, now full of its `secret` burial sites that we try to uncover through the help of witnesses…   7.12.2012   Photo: Maritsa Christofi Netou, the "natural dentist" of Dikomo, "missing" since 1974…   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 16th of December 2012, Sunday.