Searching for `missing` from Louroudjina…

Searching for `missing` from Louroudjina…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   Last week I received a letter from one of my Turkish Cypriot readers… He wrote: `Dear Sevgul, Believe me, I wrote many things without a problem but now, writing to you is so difficult… I wrote many times and deleted what I wrote, I want to write a short letter and hope that I won't waste your valuable time for nothing… I read your interviews about the two `missing` young Greek Cypriot boys from Louroudjina. In one of the interviews, one of their female relatives talks about a shepherd and a woman who used to cook for them but I believe these are imaginary. What I will tell you is my own memories – I was only five years old at that time. The two young Greek Cypriots were not kept at the storage house of straw but at the bathroom of a big house. The ones who were watching them were some Turkish Cypriot soldiers especially appointed for this purpose. They had told them that they were not going to kill them, two Turkish Cypriots had been kidnapped by some Greek Cypriots and they were told that they would use them for exchange with those two kidnapped Turkish Cypriots. They had agreed amongst them that they would not try to escape. It really was like this. During daytime, I remember them walking freely in the garden of the big house which had a high wall and no one could see inside the yard. Until one of them got really sick. My grandfather used to send him milk because it would be good for his stomach, as well as food. I used to bring the milk and the food there. I did not see much of him since he was constantly sick in bed but I used to speak all the time with the other young man, we would play ball and he would pick me up on his shoulders… There used to be a very big fig tree in the house they stayed. He would pick me up, put me on his shoulders and say, `Hade ….. mou, na soropsumen syka` (`Let's collect some figs`)… I would collect the figs and we would eat together… While writing these, it's not possible not to get emotional; he was a very good person, full of life… He would laugh with me… Somehow, I can't remember his face… In my last visits, I was not seeing the sick one but only him, speaking with him. I was asking about the sick young man and they had told me that he was taken to the hospital. One day I had heard some shouting, some of the leaders of the village were shouting and were beating up two persons, hitting them with their fists and kicking them. I was hiding and watching this scene. Although they had not seen me, I was extremely frightened. I realized that instead of setting the two free, they had killed them and that's why they were being beaten up. But still I did not realize who they had killed. When the leader asked them what they did with the dead bodies, I heard them answering that they were buried in a cave. Dear Sevgul, I still am not sure whether what they were talking about were about the two young men. I still am not sure but I heard this. These two persons being beaten up were from the village Koshi and the cave they were describing as far as I remember, I will describe to you. There is a dirt track leading from Louroudjina, passing from Koshi to Larnaka. It is a dirt track, not an asphalt road. You have to pass the house of Osman Alyanak. You have to pass the rubbish damp of the English. After you pass the almond trees of Ali Bey, you continue towards Koshi. They were talking about the big hill on the left, the cave on this big hill. On the left was the big hill, on the right were vineyards. I don't know whether these vineyards still exist. I do not know whether what I have written will help but if I can help a little bit humanity, I will be very happy. I am always ready to help you, be sure that humanity is not dead. I hope that what I remember is right and the relatives of these two innocent humans will finally find some peace. The fire burns where it falls on… Those who have not burned cannot understand that pain…` My reader is talking about two young Greek Cypriots, kidnapped with their motorcycle, kept in Louroudjina for exchange of prisoners for six months but finally killed and `disappeared`. He is talking about the two young men – we have been looking for information about them for many years and some of my readers showed some possible burial sites, some of these were excavated with no results, some of these possible burial sites still pending since Louroudjina is a military zone and any excavation needs `permission` from the Turkish military authorities. These two, young, innocent persons had nothing to do with the conflict but were kidnapped since some Greek Cypriots had kidnapped some Turkish Cypriots… 1963-64 saw many such incidents – some of those kidnapped, could be saved, some not… The very sad story of these two young men is that after being kept in the village for six months, they were killed and no one knows where they were buried: Only rumours from different sources… From time to time, the brother of one of them calls me and asks me if there is any news and asks for help… I thank this reader and speak with some friends from Louroudjina and surrounding villages in order to find out where this hill might be and also inform the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee about the information given to me by my reader. We decide to go together to try to see where this hill and that cave might be. My readers warn me that the hill I am talking about is surrounded with mine fields and tell me to be careful… I find a Turkish Cypriot relative of a `missing person`, one of my readers, who has been helping me with my investigations in this area and he agrees to come with us in order to help us to see where we are and where the places my reader is mentioning are. He tells me that we should go from the southern part of our island, from the side of Dali, not from Louroudjina since from the northern part we would not be able to take any Greek Cypriot with us. So on Friday he picks me up from my house and we go to pick up Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and go to meet Xenophon Kallis from the Committee in Dali. Together we go to see where the big hill is that my reader mentions. My reader, the relative of a `missing person` from the area tells us that the hill is `Kochino Kafkalla` and he directs us where to go… First we need to find the old dirt track, the road that was used between Louroudjina and Koshi. We find the road and we find where the almond trees of Ali Bey were. Just as my readers had told me, there are many mine fields here… We stop and my reader looks around and shows us where the caves are on the top of the hill, just as my reader had described. We get in the car and drive up to reach to a point from where we can walk to the cave… The view from the top is astonishing: Cyprus is so beautiful; we just haven't yet learnt how to appreciate this beauty… We find the cave and both Murat Soysal and Kallis go inside the cave. This cave must have been used by shepherds during bad weather in those times… The hill itself is barren, only a few `mosfilo` trees and agrelli, surrounding the trees… Were people buried in this cave and if so, who? Was it those two young `missing` men or some other people? We don't know so we all need to investigate more… This is the first time I am hearing of this cave so I need to find people who might know about this cave… And also to see whether there are other caves on this hill, how they were used, why they were used, who used them… My reader tells me that after the 20th of August 1974 when war was over, probably aroung September or October, there had been a problem with water in the area and the Turkish Cypriot mukhtar of Louroudjina and the Greek Cypriot mukhtar of Athienou met, while repairs were going on. They looked at the vast land and said, `We should share this land, that is becoming a Green Line, a `no man's land`.` So they sat down and decided that the electricity posts would be the `dividing line` of the buffer zone. From the electricity posts, one side would be used by Turkish Cypriots and the other side would be used by Greek Cypriots. They would go to the United Nations Peace Keeping Force and tell them what they did and the UN would say, `So long as you agree amongst yourselves, we have no problem in you, using the Buffer Zone and planting there…` So my reader tells me that perhaps it's the only place in Cyprus where the Buffer Zone is used by Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots to plant wheat and barley and harvest it. `Of course` he says, `the Buffer Zone is still under UN control…` `What about Pyla?` I ask him. He says, `No, Pyla is different because there are the British bases there…` My reader does not believe that there are only two `missing` Greek Cypriots from this area, from Louroudjina. `There should be more – they had arrested someone with a white car – Anglia – I don't believe he was set free… They had arrested four Greek Cypriots and they were not on the list for `exchange` and they had been kept separately from the others… So there should be around seven `missing` from Louroudjina` he explains to me… Soon two UN officers come to see us. One of them tells us that the Turkish Cypriot military saw us through their binoculars and immediately called the UN commander saying `There are five civilians on the hill` and they came to check. Murat Soysal explains to them that he is an official of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and that we are investigating information about a possible burial site. The UN officer says that this is the Buffer Zone, we ask him if there are any signs showing that we are in the Buffer Zone and he says, `No, we don't have any signs showing that` and starts explaining to us from which point to which point is the buffer zone… Why aren't there any signs showing the Buffer Zone? Perhaps the two sides need a `Grey Zone` and that's why there are no signs… In a polite, interrogating manner, they want to know if we took photos of the Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot or the UN military positions in the area. Murat Soysal tells them `No, our mission is to investigate information about possible burial sites, not taking photos of military positions…` While leaving we see a Turkish Cypriot on a motorbike – he explains to my reader that he has come to collect agrelli! The UN solider asks us to leave – we have found the cave anyway so we leave… We will need more investigation about this possible burial site, about this cave and our search for the remains of the two young `missing` Greek Cypriots, as well as others `missing` from this area will continue…   26.1.2013   Photo: Xenophon Kallis and Murat Soysal, officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, investigating the area on `Kochino Kafkalla`...   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 24th of February 2013

Tulips blossoming in Masari…

Tulips blossoming in Masari…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   Last week, one of my Turkish Cypriot readers calls me… `I have been thinking a lot of calling you` he says. He comes from a refugee family… His family was settled in Masari (now called Shahinler) village after 1974 – he was only seven years old then… While they were going around with his grandfather on his donkey, they had seen the bodies of some Greek Cypriots killed during the war… His grandfather had buried them… Being only a seven year old kid at the time, what he saw devastated him… `I can show this place of burial to you` he says… Immediately I get into contact with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and arrange with them to go with my reader on Tuesday, 29th of January 2013 to Masari so that he can show us this possible burial site. My reader whom I meet for the first time shows us the way – the beauty of my work is that I do not know who my readers are until they stop me in the street, at a café, during shopping or until they call me and then I become very happy to get to know them… This reader too is someone I am meeting for the first time – he has a kind heart and wants to help in the search for the `missing`… At some point close to Philia (now called Serhatkeuy) we get off the main road between Nicosia and Morphou and go on a dirt track… There is a mandra and some bee hives and we pass through the mandra and stop at the point where my reader points out. With us are Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and two Turkish Cypriot investigators from the Committee. We are outside Masari and my reader scrutinizes the area carefully… `Actually I did not want to remember all of this, I was only a seven year old kid then…` he says, `Whether you want or not, you would be affected by what you saw…` He walks on the dirt track and stops at a certain point. There had been the bodies of four `missing` Greek Cypriots here he explains, one of them was being torn by dogs so his grandfather would take this body and bury it by the side of the road. A few meters up, there used to be a military point of Greek Cypriot soldiers he explains – that's why he remembers this spot. The road goes up and then there is a sort of a cavity and a bumpy place and then continues. `Are you sure of this spot?` I ask my reader, `because if you look up, you see how funny that bumpy spot is on this track…` `No, I am sure…` he says. The Greek Cypriots had dug trenches parallel to the dirt track in order to pass water pipes he remembers but war had stopped this activity. So there had already been ready trenches in this area… `You must dig these trenches all the way down as well as the ochto` he says… `They might have buried others around these trenches…` We go up to find the military point that my reader was mentioning but he calls us down to show another spot to us… `Here` he says, `my grandfather had buried a five year old child… It was a girl and had golden hair… Only half of her body was there – perhaps a bomb had hit her and she was torn apart… I remember a burnt doll next to her and some broken crockery…` There are tulips and wild flowers on the spot he shows us: Purple tulips, tulips which are a bright pink, yellow tulips, tulips the colour of lilac… As a seven year old child what he saw that day affected him: `They would come in my dreams…` he says, `Now that we are here again, those horrible memories will come back and haunt me… I will get sick again… I did not want to remember all of these but I have to do this for humanity…` As a seven year old child, a witness of the ugly face of war, he had never forgotten this place and he shows us these possible burial sites years later. `If we had a shovel now, we could find them` he says. `Don't worry the archaeologists of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee will excavate these places properly` we assure him… `There used to be some posts and some wire in this area, leading all the way down` he says… He goes and searches and finds the posts… He walks up the dirt track and finds some bones and shows these to Okan Oktay who is an anthropologist and the Coordinator of Exhumations in the Committee. One of these bones is the bone of an animal. But a bit later, my reader finds a human bone: This is the finger bone of a human and Okan Oktay confirms that it is in fact a human bone. It is the spot where the dirt track has a cavity and a sort of a bump – maybe in this spot there is another burial place… Kallis thanks my reader saying, `What you have done is helping humanity…` My reader says, `At least these families will find some peace at last… I am doing it for humanity…` Before we leave, I collect some tulips of all colours: I do not remember when I had collected tulips; it must have been years ago… I remember the days when as a child I would go to collect tulips – how happy I was finding tulips with different colours. But I have never seen such tulips as in Masari with such bright colours... Tonight, I will put them in an old vase and they will remind me of the seven year old child who saw what no other child should see… They will remind me of the five year old girl killed here and buried somewhere where tulips are blossoming now… The tulips I have collected will remind me that no matter how harsh things might be that life continues and that tulips continue to blossom, the earth offering us its beauty for us to learn to appreciate… Tulips will remind me of children whose hearts have been broken by war – children should never encounter the ugly faces of war, they should just go up these small cliffs and pick tulips happily, they should just play in this beautiful nature, without being exposed to bones and dead bodies and horrible stories of war… They should push their roots on this soil, without fear of being exposed to the poison of war and grow up and blossom with all the colours of these wonderful tulips… A few days later, while we are at an investigation in Dikomo together with Kallis and Murat Soysal, there is a call from one of the archaeologists: Excavations began in Masari and they have started finding bones at the first scoop of the bulldozer as soon as they began digging at the place where my reader has shown… I am so happy for this! If my reader hadn't showed this place, it would have been very difficult to find it - outside Masari with no one living around, if only someone would have started a construction and encountered the human remains and if he or she would be sensitive enough to notify authorities and not throw them away as it happened in so many instances in the past, perhaps they would be found… There are so many `if`s in this scenario so I am so grateful and thankful to my reader who showed the courage and humanity to call me and show us this burial site… In the evening I call my reader to thank him and tell him the good news… `After we went to Masari` he explains to me, `I really got sick… I was remembering all the things I saw there as a child…` `But you can be happy now and tonight you will sleep peacefully` I tell him, `since they have started finding the remains, now you can relax and think of all the families who will find peace receiving these remains…` `Yes…` he says… `Tonight I will sleep peacefully…` `Thank you so much from my heart for showing us this place` I say to him… Next week we will meet again because he will show us yet another possible burial site that he had seen in the area of Agia Marina (now called Gurpinar)… Tulips are blossoming in Masari and the excavations will continue to find the `missing persons` buried in this area… Tulips will blossom in Masari to remind us that life can be beautiful if only we can learn to really appreciate it, instead of destroying it… Tulips will blossom in Masari to remind us to create a country where innocence of children will not be poisoned by war, where they can go and pick tulips without encountering mass graves and only enjoying the delicate smell of tulips and the beauty of our country… Tulips will tell these stories if only we can hear them…   2.2.2013   *** When exhumations began in the possible burial site that my reader showed, the remains of six "missing persons" were found and the exhumation continues...   Photo: Tulips I collected from Masari…   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 17th of February 2013, Sunday.

Stories from Agios Vasilios, Shilloura and Sysklipos…

Stories from Agios Vasilios, Shilloura and Sysklipos…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   Little Maria had no idea about what was happening around Sysklipos back in 1963: She was barely 11 years old at that time, living a happy life, not aware of the process that was taking Cyprus to shambles… Back in 1963 in December there started a process that already had seeds of conflict which had started to grow from the 1950s… Little Maria was happy living in Sysklipos, looking at life with starry eyes in this beautiful mountain village with abundance of fruit, nuts and food… Her father, a farmer of cows, sheep and goats, her mother, a very active woman who was everywhere were taking care of the family, a family with eight boys and a girl – Maria was the only daughter and she had eight brothers… Her grandfather was the priest of the village, Papageorgiou, who was known for being a peaceful man and resolving conflicts and preserving harmony… But there were others in other villages that were ready to disrupt these peaceful days in the area that Maria did not know of… It all began in Agios Vasilios, a village not far from Nicosia – it had been a quiet village, not much happening, no serious conflict whatsoever in the village. It was a mixed village but the neighbourhoods of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots were separate. And yet in December 1963, some Greek Cypriots of this village, together with a team from Kokkinotrimitia would stage an attack on the Turkish Cypriots… Turkish Cypriots of Agios Vasilios would all leave the village. All, except around 10 or 11 people, an old woman with a ten year old granddaughter called Ayshe, some youngsters, some old people – men and women… Little Ayshe was the same age as Maria, going to school and not knowing that a tragic end waited for her… The attack would come and although most of the Turkish Cypriots from the village would manage to escape, little Ayshe and her grandmother, as well as some others could not: They would all be massacred and then buried in a mass grave in Agios Vasilios. Agios Vasilios was the key to the events in the area in December 1963 – Turkish Cypriots of Agios Vasilios as they left the village, would go to Shilloura, another mixed village. When the Turkish Cypriots of Shilloura would hear the news of the attack of the Greek Cypriots on Agios Vasilios, they too would join the refugees and would leave together to go to Phota, a Turkish Cypriot village of the area. Soon few Turkish Cypriots living in Agios Ermolaos would also leave and go to Phota, out of fear of coming under attack. Turkish Cypriots from Denia would also leave and go to Phota – one of their sons, Mustafa Ali, working at the airport would be killed by a Greek Cypriot co-worker and he would go `missing`… Turkish Cypriots of Lapithos would also gather in Phota – all the Turkish Cypriot refugees from this whole area would start living in mandras, in half-finished or half-demolished houses, later on tents would be acquired and they would set on a course of misery for the next decade to follow… They would lose their animals, their land, their houses, their photographs, their furniture, their clothes and blankets and quilts, everything they needed to carry on with their daily lives… They would have to settle in Phota and Pileri and Krini and would try to survive on this land of misery… Children would be born and put in makeshift vegetable baskets that would serve as beds, refugee children would have to depend on the villagers for their daily need for milk and food… They would lose all opportunities that `normal` children would have… There will begin a life of misery and poverty, a life of uncertainty not only in this area but in the whole of the island, fear becoming the king with a crown… Fear would rule the lives of ordinary people, fear of being killed, fear of being kidnapped, fear of disappearing, fear of not being able to provide food and a shelter for your children… Fear of not having basic needs to carry on the daily life under the Cypriot sun and the blue sky… All of the things that the Greek Cypriots would live through in 1974, the Turkish Cypriots would pass through those back in 1963: The massacres, the kidnappings, the rapes, the disappearances and most of all the fear that would feed the monster of lack of confidence towards the other community. This would be the work of a handful of Greek Cypriots and some Turkish Cypriots and yet the whole island would start suffering in the years to come and it would affect our future on this island. 1963 would also bring misery to Greek Cypriots who would also come under attack in different places: They would also disappear, becoming `missing`, they would also be killed, they would also become refugees and lose everything – maybe not on a big scale as in 1974 but what does scale matter? What matters is the human misery on this island, that both have experienced it and not only both but the Armenian Cypriots would also be affected from this all, losing their homes and work… Maronite Cypriots would also be affected but who cares in the end, when it comes to shaping the partition of the island? In Agios Vasilios, those who had staged the attack, some Greek Cypriots of Agios Vasilios and Kokkinotrimitia would first loot the houses and mandras of the Turkish Cypriots. They would steal what they could – even today the gandjelli of some houses in Kokkinotrimitia are from those times – the looted ironwork surrounds the house of some Greek Cypriots… They would steal the animals and bring them back to Kokkinotrimitia to start their own farms – all of this would be repeated by some Turkish Cypriots in 1974 – same massacres, same lootings, same rapes, same stealing of animals and furniture, the greed that comes with war and they would all call this `heroism` in both communities and praise those who had done it! Sure, nothing had started out of the blue, we had the 50s with the British dividing and ruling, using the two main communities against each other and starting to breed insecurity and `nationalisms` against each other but Cypriots – both Turkish and Greek – would fall to the trap – they would be used against each other, not actually grasping what the real game was… In Shilloura too, the houses that the Turkish Cypriots had abandoned would be looted, afterwards some of them would be burned or demolished. Maria Nikiforou Papageorgiou was only 11 years old then and she would see some houses burning and learn that the Turkish Cypriots of Shilloura had left the village. But she wouldn't really understand as a child, what was going on and what was to follow… Maria would grow up in Sysklipos, the granddaughter of the priest of the village – Georgios Papageorgiou had come with his wife Theognosia from Agios Ermolaos to settle in Sysklipos as the priest of the village. He would build a big, beautiful house close to the church and would have nine children, six boys and three girls. Maria's father Hadjicosta Papageorgiou had been a farmer with cows and sheep and she would be the only daughter of the family with eight brothers! `We always had harmony and we were a very happy family` she would tell me… `My mother was a very active woman, she would be everywhere! She too was very close to her own family…` Despite what had happened in 1963, Maria would remember that their relations with Turkish Cypriots in the area were good: `We would travel on the same bus with the Turkish Cypriot workers and there were some Turkish Cypriot workers working in our village. My grandfather was a peace builder – he would always try to resolve conflicts… I remember after the conflict in 1963, one of our villagers, Frixos Irakleous, a quiet shepherd was beaten up by a Turkish Cypriot. Frixos had gone to graze his animals close to Phota – this was a place where shepherds from both communities were grazing their animals. Even this did not turn into dramatic events…` Sysklipos would not be involved in the conflict until 1974 when some Turkish Cypriots from Krini accompanied by some Turkish soldiers would go to a house in the village and would kill a group of 14 Greek Cypriots on the 3rd of August 1974. And Maria's father would `disappear` on the 26th of July 1974 – Maria has five `missing` relatives – her father, her uncle Josif Papageorgiou, her aunty Christallou, her other aunt Anastasia and uncle Christodoulos Kamenos… We would visit the village with Maria on the 11th of December 2012 so that she could show us a possible burial site, together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee. She would show us the place of a well where some `missing` from the village might be buried… Before that, I would go with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee on the 30th of November 2012 to look for a possible burial site between the road from Sysklipos to Agios Ermolaos, a field where there might be a mass grave. According to the information I had gathered, a Turkish Cypriot had tried to rent this field but was refused. When he enquired from the leaders of the village, one of them would tell him that `There is a mass grave in that field so that's why they don't allow you to rent it…` This field was on the way from the house where the massacre of 14 Greek Cypriots took place so it would seem `logical` that they might have been buried in that field. 21 Greek Cypriots who had remained in Sysklipos are `missing` and I believe that the remains of only three of them have been found… We still need to find out more details about possible burial sites, investigate more and try to find the remains of Maria's father, as well as all those others `missing` from the village… One day I cook chicken with sweet oranges and clementines, a recipe I developed myself and invite Maria to my house. My old friend Nouritza translates since Maria cannot speak English… We talk and then we eat and have our coffee together, trying to understand what had happened in Sysklipos… Maria is in so much pain that it affects her whole life, just as it is with so many hundreds of relatives of `missing` persons… Maria wants to know what happened to her father and where he is buried… `I am not someone for vengeance` she says… The huge gap in her life would only be filled if only she knows what happened and if she receives the remains of her father… For this both I and my readers will try to help so that she can have at least some peace of mind in this life… If anyone has any details about Sysklipos, please call me on my mobile, with or without your name: 99 966518. If we each help a little bit, people like Maria will no longer live in torture but at least would have closure of a very painful chapter of their lives… So please help us if you know anything…   12.1.2013   Photo: Maria in Sysklipos…   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 10th of February, 2013 Sunday.

From Lefkonico to Trikomo…

From Lefkonico to Trikomo…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   We travel to Trikomo, me and the witness together with Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, in order to show a possible burial site to them – there we will meet one of my Turkish Cypriot readers, another witness who had found some human remains back in 1980 and he will show us the exact location of these remains. On our way to Trikomo, we stop at Lefkonico, my father's village, at the Greek Cypriot cemetery where one of my readers had shown us a while ago, a small well inside the cemetery where he had buried a human skull. Years ago, he had found this skull somewhere in Lefkonico and had taken it – he was just a kid of 15 and was playing with it when someone had told him that it's not good to do that, that he should go and bury it in the Greek Cypriot cemetery where there was a shallow well. So he had gone and put it in the well. One day he had called me to tell this story so we had gone, together with Kallis, Murat Sosyal and Okan, so that he could show us this small well. Now, exhumation has been completed and just as my reader had told me, the exhumation team made up of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot archaeologists have found the human skull. We stop to say hello to them and look at the small well, not deeper than 1 meter… My reader had found the skull, years ago at a spot where years later the exhumation team had dug and had found the remains of two old persons, one of them without a skull. He has shown us where he had taken the skull from and this was in fact the spot where some exhumations were done some months ago. Therefore it's highly probable that this skull belongs to one of those two old persons, probably two old women – but only DNA will confirm this. I will call my reader when I go back home at night and thank him for kindly having shown us the spot in the cemetery for uncovering the human skull that belongs to a `missing person`. We leave to go to Trikomo – it's sunny but cold and at the entrance of the village we stop. The witness shows us an empty plot where there used to be a house back in 1974 – the house has been demolished but we can see parts of the sunbrick walls… The trees have been cut and it's only green grass now, in this empty plot and ghosts roaming, waiting for us to discover the tragic story connected with this land… There used to be a mulberry tree, some fig and lemon trees here but all are gone… Perhaps someone had decided to build something here and demolished the old house and cut the trees but could not start the construction? Greek Cypriots remained for quite some time in Trikomo after 1974… One of my Turkish Cypriot readers who had got married in Trikomo in 1980 told me that, in that year there had been 116 Greek Cypriots living in Trikomo. `Some of them, when they died of old age, were buried in the Greek Cypriot cemetery. But some of them had relatives in the southern part of our island and their relatives would take the body to bury in the south…` Here in this plot was a possible burial site of some Greek Cypriot `missing persons` from the village. We take coordinates and photos – I ask the group to come with me to the small church at the entrance of Trikomo when you are coming from Nicosia – this is now an icon museum. I wrote a lot about the yard of this church where some Greek Cypriot `missing` had been buried but later with a bulldozer, their remains were taken away. According to my readers from this area who had witnessed the `cleansing operation` at night, the bulldozer could not enter the church yard so it stayed outside, scooping up the remains from the yard and loading them on a truck. Together we investigate the yard, trying to see in which parts the cement is new and in which parts it's old. The wall surrounding the church is still intact – it is very old and the new cement they put in the yard has been cracked by the trees, we can see that. While there, my Turkish Cypriot reader who had stayed for more than 15 years in this village comes to meet us. He no longer lives in Trikomo but has seen some human remains in another church yard and I have asked him to show this spot to us. We go together to another church yard and my reader shows us the exact location where he had seen some human remains. They had been cleaning the yard when they came across the remains. `We saw some shoes and some bones and we closed it` he says. We thank him for showing us the exact location of this possible burial site and we go to have coffee in one of my friend's house. She is at work but her mother who helped me a lot with my investigations concerning the `missing` Turkish Cypriots of Larnaka is at home. She had helped me back in 2006 to find all the relatives of the 11 Turkish Cypriot `missing` with the bus – they were going to work from Larnaka to Dhekelia at the British Bases when the bus went `missing` - they were kidnapped and killed and buried in a well in Oroklini… She would help me to find the relatives of those `missing` from the bus and I would go and interview them…  Now she greets us and makes us coffee and we sit to chat about her life – her husband is at home as well and he too tells us his memories from Larnaka. His family was actually from Assia but because his grandfather had camels, they had moved to Larnaka and he grew up there. He is a great fisherman, always having a boat not for work but as a hobby… Sometimes he would have starfish or seahorses on his net and he would send these to me with my friend, his daughter. He now lives with a battery for his heart and he should not go alone on the sea but still he keeps his boat… Tall, blond with blue eyes, he spent 20 years of his life in Qatar, after he became a refugee in 1974 from Larnaka. He could not find a job and he needed to work so that his three children and his wife could survive on this island. So he would go to work in deserts and the shores and finally would come back to settle… We start talking about `missing` Turkish Cypriots from the Larnaka area who were killed by the Turkish Cypriot military authorities of the time – he knows them all, with their stories and he might perhaps help us to find out more details, leading us to their burial sites. The best thing about my investigative journalism is this: The involvement of ordinary Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots in helping out to ease the pain and suffering of others… They do it out of their heart; they are genuinely interested in closing the wounds of this country and not having any such tragedies in the future. They are bold as humans and I greet them for who they are…   (*) After this article was written, exhumations began in Trikomo in the spot where my Greek Cypriot witness has shown and remains of four `missing` Greek Cypriots were exhumed… I thank him for coming with me and the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and showing us the possible burial site…   11.1.2013   Photo: Archeologists at the exhumation site in Trikomo…   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 3rd of February 2013, Sunday.