Under the eucalyptus trees…

Under the eucalyptus trees…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   The weather is shifty: Cloudy, windy, sunny, very rarely just a few drops of rain… The wind reminds me of other winters when I was a child, when February and March would be cold and even in April, there would be lots of rain… Each year as we prepared for the Children's Day on the 23rd of April to go and dance at the festivities, we would get rain almost every time and we would have to postpone our dances to the following week… Those years have gone by and now we simply have shifty weather, not really knowing what to expect: Sunny or cloudy or windy? The weather has become like the mood in our country – not really knowing and not really seeing what might happen next… But we carry on and continue to do what we have been doing… It's been eleven years now, since I started writing about `missing persons` and the untold stories of Cyprus and seven years since I started running a `Hot Line` for my readers with my own personal mobiles… My readers call and can remain anonymous, giving me valuable information, tips, what they saw, what they heard and sometimes we would meet to go to a possible burial site that they know or heard of. In this way, we uncover the earth and dust over the hidden stories of our country – it's a difficult, tough task and needs a lot of patience but we are not going anywhere, we are here, on this island where things move slowly so I don't mind… On the contrary I am happy each time one of my readers calls and speaks to me – they take me to places I have never seen, tell me stories I have never heard, share a piece of the puzzle that we didn't know… They do the most humanitarian, most amazing thing by picking up the phone and dialling my number: In this way, they set on a path of no return… Because before they decide to call, they think about it and then decide – it takes some years for some of them before they decide to call so once they call, they are jumping a threshold with ease – they have already decided to help in this humanitarian search for information – that's why there is no going back. They have already crossed that threshold of keeping silent, keeping it to themselves and decided to share what they know. This is the most powerful part of my journalism because in this way, we manage to break walls of silence and as my readers talk, things become clearer, another piece of the missing puzzle fits in and in this way we create an understanding of what actually happened in the past. Last week one of my very dedicated readers calls me at night: Apparently he's together with a group from the area of Messaoria and has managed to convince another of my readers whom I don't know, to show me a possible burial site. I would call this person the following day to get the details… We speak the following day with this person and he tells me of a place in Pyrga (now called Pirhan). He had been a young boy of 17 in 1974 in this area and he heard some things, he saw some things and he says he's ready to show me, anytime I like, the possible burial site of some `missing persons` from the area. I arrange to go together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to meet him and go together to Pyrga. On the 1st of March, 2013, Friday we set out from Nicosia together with Murat Soysal, Okan Oktay and Xenophon Kallis from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to go and meet this reader of mine whom I never saw in my life. First we meet him and have coffee – coffee is the Cypriot way of getting to know each other and sharing our stories so we sit in his office while his dog sniffs us and wants to play… He suggests stopping around Ebicho (Abohor – Cihangir) in an old man's house to find out more details about the story and we go there first. Living alone in a house surrounded with a vast garden of six donums, the old man greets us. My reader wants to find out details of some names who had been in Pyrga in 1974. Then we drive to Pyrga, following the car of my reader. There is a group of eucalyptus trees in the middle of a huge field stretching for miles… Across is a military camp but where we want to go is under the eucalyptus trees. So we park our cars on a dirt track and walk among the green fields of barley, scattered with yellow patches, the colour of Cyprus in this time of the year: The green and yellow merges and we walk to reach the eucalyptus trees. From where we stand we can see Sinda to our south, in the north across the road must be Yenagra (now called Nergisli). It is sunny but at the same time windy today… In 1974, they had taken a group of Greek Cypriots here, under the eucalyptus trees… My reader was in the area but they would chase him and all the other civilians away, soldiers would tell them to go away… Some minutes later, my reader and other civilians with him heard shots. Apparently this was where that group of Greek Cypriots were executed and perhaps buried. When he had called me, he had told me that this was a group of 17 Greek Cypriots but after some investigation, he says that they might not have been 17 but 7. He gives us names of those who had been here and who know more about what happened. Okan Oktay writes down the names he gives and the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee will try to find these names to get more details about this possible burial site. My reader also tells us that some people from Sinda might also know some details of this story since they used to come to Pyrga back in 1974 until the soldiers chased everyone away and Pyrga became a military village. There is only a military camp in this village and there are no civilians settled in Pyrga. I will call my readers from Sinda to see what they know about this group of eucalyptus. We walk under the eucalyptus trees… Kallis says that years ago, someone must have planted these eucalyptus trees around his field… There are older ones and younger trees – perhaps the young trees grew on their own, no one planted them… Who had been in this field? Was it a group trying to escape war and go to the southern part of our island? Were they civilians? Were they soldiers? My reader remembers that this happened after the 14th of August 1974. When he first told me the story on the phone, he had said that they had separated women and children and had sent them to the south but among those killed here were some youngsters of 16-17 years old. I don't want to frighten him to silence so I let him tell me what he knows in the way he wants to tell. I don't want to force anyone to share what they know: I want them to share willingly because this is the more meaningful way of doing things. Only if people share what they know willingly, the truth will set us all free. We shall breathe more easily on this land; we will know what happened exactly and wipe off the dust covering our bloody past. We thank my reader for sharing what he knows and showing us this possible burial site. We will continue to investigate to find out what happened under these silent eucalyptus trees in the middle of vast, empty fields…   2.3.2013   Photo: The group of eucalyptus trees in Pyrga...   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 24th of March, 2013 Sunday.

Under the eucalyptus trees…

Under the eucalyptus trees…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   The weather is shifty: Cloudy, windy, sunny, very rarely just a few drops of rain… The wind reminds me of other winters when I was a child, when February and March would be cold and even in April, there would be lots of rain… Each year as we prepared for the Children's Day on the 23rd of April to go and dance at the festivities, we would get rain almost every time and we would have to postpone our dances to the following week… Those years have gone by and now we simply have shifty weather, not really knowing what to expect: Sunny or cloudy or windy? The weather has become like the mood in our country – not really knowing and not really seeing what might happen next… But we carry on and continue to do what we have been doing… It's been eleven years now, since I started writing about `missing persons` and the untold stories of Cyprus and seven years since I started running a `Hot Line` for my readers with my own personal mobiles… My readers call and can remain anonymous, giving me valuable information, tips, what they saw, what they heard and sometimes we would meet to go to a possible burial site that they know or heard of. In this way, we uncover the earth and dust over the hidden stories of our country – it's a difficult, tough task and needs a lot of patience but we are not going anywhere, we are here, on this island where things move slowly so I don't mind… On the contrary I am happy each time one of my readers calls and speaks to me – they take me to places I have never seen, tell me stories I have never heard, share a piece of the puzzle that we didn't know… They do the most humanitarian, most amazing thing by picking up the phone and dialling my number: In this way, they set on a path of no return… Because before they decide to call, they think about it and then decide – it takes some years for some of them before they decide to call so once they call, they are jumping a threshold with ease – they have already decided to help in this humanitarian search for information – that's why there is no going back. They have already crossed that threshold of keeping silent, keeping it to themselves and decided to share what they know. This is the most powerful part of my journalism because in this way, we manage to break walls of silence and as my readers talk, things become clearer, another piece of the missing puzzle fits in and in this way we create an understanding of what actually happened in the past. Last week one of my very dedicated readers calls me at night: Apparently he's together with a group from the area of Messaoria and has managed to convince another of my readers whom I don't know, to show me a possible burial site. I would call this person the following day to get the details… We speak the following day with this person and he tells me of a place in Pyrga (now called Pirhan). He had been a young boy of 17 in 1974 in this area and he heard some things, he saw some things and he says he's ready to show me, anytime I like, the possible burial site of some `missing persons` from the area. I arrange to go together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to meet him and go together to Pyrga. On the 1st of March, 2013, Friday we set out from Nicosia together with Murat Soysal, Okan Oktay and Xenophon Kallis from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to go and meet this reader of mine whom I never saw in my life. First we meet him and have coffee – coffee is the Cypriot way of getting to know each other and sharing our stories so we sit in his office while his dog sniffs us and wants to play… He suggests stopping around Ebicho (Abohor – Cihangir) in an old man's house to find out more details about the story and we go there first. Living alone in a house surrounded with a vast garden of six donums, the old man greets us. My reader wants to find out details of some names who had been in Pyrga in 1974. Then we drive to Pyrga, following the car of my reader. There is a group of eucalyptus trees in the middle of a huge field stretching for miles… Across is a military camp but where we want to go is under the eucalyptus trees. So we park our cars on a dirt track and walk among the green fields of barley, scattered with yellow patches, the colour of Cyprus in this time of the year: The green and yellow merges and we walk to reach the eucalyptus trees. From where we stand we can see Sinda to our south, in the north across the road must be Yenagra (now called Nergisli). It is sunny but at the same time windy today… In 1974, they had taken a group of Greek Cypriots here, under the eucalyptus trees… My reader was in the area but they would chase him and all the other civilians away, soldiers would tell them to go away… Some minutes later, my reader and other civilians with him heard shots. Apparently this was where that group of Greek Cypriots were executed and perhaps buried. When he had called me, he had told me that this was a group of 17 Greek Cypriots but after some investigation, he says that they might not have been 17 but 7. He gives us names of those who had been here and who know more about what happened. Okan Oktay writes down the names he gives and the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee will try to find these names to get more details about this possible burial site. My reader also tells us that some people from Sinda might also know some details of this story since they used to come to Pyrga back in 1974 until the soldiers chased everyone away and Pyrga became a military village. There is only a military camp in this village and there are no civilians settled in Pyrga. I will call my readers from Sinda to see what they know about this group of eucalyptus. We walk under the eucalyptus trees… Kallis says that years ago, someone must have planted these eucalyptus trees around his field… There are older ones and younger trees – perhaps the young trees grew on their own, no one planted them… Who had been in this field? Was it a group trying to escape war and go to the southern part of our island? Were they civilians? Were they soldiers? My reader remembers that this happened after the 14th of August 1974. When he first told me the story on the phone, he had said that they had separated women and children and had sent them to the south but among those killed here were some youngsters of 16-17 years old. I don't want to frighten him to silence so I let him tell me what he knows in the way he wants to tell. I don't want to force anyone to share what they know: I want them to share willingly because this is the more meaningful way of doing things. Only if people share what they know willingly, the truth will set us all free. We shall breathe more easily on this land; we will know what happened exactly and wipe off the dust covering our bloody past. We thank my reader for sharing what he knows and showing us this possible burial site. We will continue to investigate to find out what happened under these silent eucalyptus trees in the middle of vast, empty fields…   2.3.2013   Photo: The group of eucalyptus trees in Pyrga...   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 24th of March, 2013 Sunday.

The beautiful, deserted village Marona...

The beautiful, deserted village Marona...   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   We go in Paphos to the deserted Turkish Cypriot village called Marona… We pass through Fasoula, Mammonia and Ayyorgis to get there… The road leading to this small but pretty village is submerged with water in various places – the area is has so much water that the streams will almost flow through the roads and dirt tracks! Now it is time for the almond trees to be in full blossom in Paphos – white and pink flowers of the almond trees simply take your breath away! Around Marona the almond trees are in full blossom – I learn that the almonds from the white flowers are the ones we can eat, the pink blossom means that these are bitter almonds… We climb up the hill through a bad road, a dirt track… Here you can only hear the wind, feel the proximity of the clouds and there is complete silence and isolation… The birds are singing but the village has been completely abandoned long time ago… The stone houses that the Turkish Cypriots of Marona village left back in 1974 are in miserable condition – they are destroyed and the stones are thrown everywhere… Grass has covered all the roads going through the village – stones that once formed the walls of the houses have been thrown around and are hidden among the grass… There is moss on them so it's quite slippery – that's why we tread carefully, checking where we are stepping on… The area is muddy since there is an abundance of water here… Streams are flowing around, the clouds gather above our heads, the sun peeks a little bit and then disappears – few drops of rain fall – the whole area is so silent… The view from up the hill is breathtaking: We stand next to an antique water fountain built by the British back in 1959 and look down – the valley below is covered with the pink and white almond blossom, the yellow flowers of lapsana, the green grass and the destroyed stone houses. My hands and my ears freeze – up on this hill, the temperature seems lower… The walls of stone houses have been destroyed, their windows and doors taken out, leaving huge gaps where the winds from Paphos can go through… Each stone was picked up with love and care while building these houses, each had a family with a history, each house had laughter and tears, births and deaths... All wiped out completely now, except in the memory of the stones... In each and every one of these houses life used to breathe, children were born and people died in them, women and children would carry water from the fountain, they would cook, they would graze their animals in the fields, take care of their vineyards, collect their carobs, olives and almonds… They would come back home, have something to eat and then sleep. The story of the whole village is engraved on the stones scattered among the grass, on the road going through the village that's no longer visible. Here people were born and people died… Children would grow up and would go to the one room school of the village. The village school, a one room building, stands next to the mosque… Once upon a time here, children learned to read and write, to sing, to count, to paint... The school stands without doors or windows, open to the winds coming from Paphos... Winds that have the memory of laughter of children, the soft voice of the teacher helping them to learn in this beautiful mountain village called Marona... The clouds watch this abandoned, destroyed village with curiosity and from time to time, they would send rains to wash the stones like teardrops coming from the sky… Birds go in and out of empty houses and a pig with its baby are the only animals we see in an empty house turned into a makeshift stable… They are trying to survive on this hill, in this empty house, in this deserted village, completely alone… There isn't even a single human being – back in 1974, people left this village and could never come back. No one embraced this village after that and the village was left without love and care, without people, completely alone… There had been an oil mill in the village but that has been dismantled and taken away long time ago just like the stolen furniture, doors and windows of the stone houses of the village… Marona, the beautiful, deserted village... The earth remembers... The wind remembers... Clouds gather to whisper the lost stories from this deserted Turkish Cypriot village in Paphos... The lonely mosque stands still on top of the hill next to the houses destroyed and left to decay in Marona... Nature covers the paths and roads inside the village - you can't walk straight, everywhere, hidden in the grass are stones from these houses in Marona... Fig trees grow out of houses, grass covers the road passing through the village, the stones hidden in the grass are covered with moss... Left to decay since 1974, this beautiful, quiet, deserted village of Turkish Cypriots in Paphos called Marona is like a symbol of the tragedy in Cyprus... It's like an open wound from the war and it touches my heart. It's as though it is destroyed and left to decay in order to tell us the stories of refugees, of people having to leave their villages, of houses being looted and the loneliness of those houses without life. No one loved this village anymore – the inhabitants, the Turkish Cypriots of Marona had been settled in other villages in another part of the same country – because they were swept away to other parts of this land, they could never return to take care of their village and it stands now, like a monument of shame, telling us what war has brought to this country… The lack of love and lack of care in this country called Cyprus… The lack of sensitivity… The lack of respect to the historical culture of the whole island… 50 years ago, there used to live 3-4 families of Greek Cypriots here. When the inter-communal fighting began at the end of 1963 and as Kuchuk Kaymakli (Omorphita) came under the attack of some Greek Cypriots, the village teacher who came from this area, started speaking harshly against these Greek Cypriots of Marona. He would say harsh things and break their hearts, frighten them and these Greek Cypriot families would gather up their belongings and leave the village… Afterwards, the Turkish Cypriots of Marona would criticize the teacher from Kuchuk Kaymakli because of his behaviour towards the Greek Cypriots… `You shouldn't have spoken like that… What did you want from them? We have good relations with Greek Cypriots here and we want to stay on good terms with them…` they would say to the teacher. The teacher, on the other hand, not knowing the fate of his family from Kuchuk Kaymakli had taken his anger and worries and fears out of the Greek Cypriots of Marona… An old Turkish Cypriot of Marona, who tells me the story says, `If that teacher did not break the hearts and frighten the Greek Cypriots of our village, they would probably stay until 1974 in the village because we used to have good relations, they used to speak Turkish fluently…` Greek Cypriots of Marona would send their children to school at Archimandrita, a nearby village. But when it would rain, the Greek Cypriot children would not be able to walk some kilometres to reach the school in the neighbouring village… `So they would come to the Turkish Cypriot school on those days` the old man would tell me. The `fasariya` of 1963 would bring other changes to the village: Turkish Cypriots from the mixed village of Archimandrita would be frightened because of the situation and one day would leave their village and come to live in Marona… `We opened the houses of the Greek Cypriots who left Marona and settled them there, some opened their stables and stores, some their houses and these refugees stayed with us until 1974` the old man says. 11-12 year old kids who were in their last year in the elementary school could never continue their secondary education say in Paphos since the roads were not safe for them to travel and there was little opportunity for safe transport – so they would lose their choice for a better future… In 1974, the Turkish Cypriots of Marona would be settled in the northern part of the island in Agios Amvrosios (Aygurush – Esentepe) together with Turkish Cypriots of Agios Nikolaos, some would be settled in Masari (Shahinler) and some others in Morphou… Now there is no longer a village called Marona… Those who grew up in this village who remember the valleys and hills, who remember the White Abyss and the Black Abyss, who remember the fountains, trees, birds and stones of Marona, when they leave this earth, there will be no memory of the word `Marona` in the minds of anyone… Their children born elsewhere, they would never know the stories of this village, neither the White Bayrams or Black Bayrams or the Mullasadik families, the three main families of this village… 50 years from now, no one will remember anything about Marona and the wind will take away all the memories, even its name will disappear from the collective memory of this village… Once upon a time, long ago, perhaps this was one of the 60 villages in Cyprus where Maronites lived – later on Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots lived there and now not even a soul except two pigs… Marona breaks my heart – I shall never be able to pass from this area without feeling sad… I collect almond flowers from Paphos and take them home… I put them in the old vase where I had put the laledes (tulips) from Masari… The almond flowers will whisper to me the story of Marona, will remind me of its astonishing beauty, a teardrop will roll down my cheek and Marona will be a pain in my heart that I shan't be able to forget…   17.2.2013   Photo: View from Marona...   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 17th of March 2013, Sunday.

In search of `missing` in Agia Marina…

In search of `missing` in Agia Marina…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   We go back to Agia Marina, this time, with a Turkish Cypriot reader of mine – he too is from Agia Marina which called Gurpinar now and the village is a military zone that no one can enter. My reader who has helped me a lot during my investigations about `missing persons` as well as the `untold stories` from this region, knows the area very well. Back in 1974, his uncle had seen the bodies of `four` missing persons in a `havuzi` (natural pond) between the two monasteries, the new and the old Profiti Ilias of Agia Marina… We go together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Murat Soysal and Xenophon Kallis, as well as Turgut Vehbi, who is not only the photographer in the Committee but also like a `joker` in a pack of cards for the excavation teams – he runs wherever there is a need and I have known him since he was a toddler, a chubby baby with red cheeks, blond hair and blue eyes! Children grow up to become young man or young woman – the only thing that did not change with Turgut is his smile – as a baby in a push cart, he was smiling with his whole face and this smile is with him all the time… He grew up with a passion for anything with wheels and ended up riding motorcycles, joining motorcycle clubs, touring the island and taking beautiful photographs… The only thing that did not change since he's a baby is his appetite and love for food: He loves eating and when we start talking about food, he always smiles… Today he is on the driver's seat and my reader sits next to him to direct him from where to go… This time we go from a different route than last time – instead of taking the dirt track from Morphou-Nicosia road, we go from Kirni… There is a reason why we take a quick stop at Kirni: There, we go to meet another reader of mine who had told me about a possible burial site. Back in 1974, a truck had come to unload some dead bodies in a spot by a hillside and later on a bulldozer had come to cover them with soil. We go and find him there, together with the archaeologists explaining where the possible burial site might be. Kirni, on the Pentataktilos (Beshparmak) mountains, close to Boghaz and Aghirdagh is a very pretty village and at this time of the year, it's all green and the almond trees are in full blossom. After we are done in Kirni, we say goodbye to the excavation team and my reader who came to show the possible burial site there and we leave for Agia Marina. With the directions of my Turkish Cypriot reader from Agia Marina we drive there and find ourselves in the area where we had got stuck in mud last time we were here. But my reader knows from where to pass and where not to pass: `I only came here 15 days ago` he says, `it must have rained and all of this water is coming from the hills…` Everywhere is muddy and in various spots the dirt track has turned into a swamp but he gets down from the car, checks and then directs us in a way that we don't get stuck… On our way to the new monastery at Agia Marina, we only see a shepherd with sheep close to the mandra, not far from the old monastery. His two dogs run to bark at us while Turgut drives very carefully and manages to pass the car through this isolated, lonely and beautiful land without getting us stuck in the mud. We drive through donums of land with `gafgarit`, wild artichokes that no one had collected – they grew and now they have dried up but new ones are blossoming – the whole area, once the `chiftlik` of Bayram Pasha, an Ottoman Pasha, is full of `gafgarit`, `agrelli`, `hostez` and wild mushrooms growing under the `gavcar`… Apparently no one comes here or only a few since nothing is touched and nature is happy as it is… My reader tells me that once upon a time, Bayram Pasha had the `chiftliks` from Denia all the way to Agia Irini so that's why there are no settlements in these lands stretching for miles and miles… He mentions a family with the surname `Ikidereli` whom I know, `They have 8 thousand donums of land here` he says! `Ikidere` means `Two streams` and there used to be a village here in old times which no longer exists… There used to be other small villages which were destroyed by the plague – some Maronite villages were wiped out during times of plague in Cyprus… Finally we stop at the new monastery of Maronites of Agia Marina, bombed and burned in 1974 – the beautiful building made of stone, without a roof, without doors or windows has a beautiful staircase, a beautiful pond in the inner courtyard – my reader remembers visiting the Abbot Andriko… `He was my friend and my villager` he says. Maronites used to call him `Igumenos Andreas`, his name was Andreas Frangou. Abbot Andreas Frangou stopped the team coming from Kokkinotrimitia village from killing the Turkish Cypriots of Agia Marina back in 1963. This team had killed some Turkish Cypriots in Agios Vasilios, a village close by and had come to collect the Turkish Cypriots of Agia Marina and kill them. But Abbot Andreas would call the team from Kokkinotrimitia to this monastery where we stand now: `You will not touch the Turkish Cypriots of our village!` he would tell them. Since they would not be able to kill the Turkish Cypriots of the village, they would harass them going around their houses at night and asking where their son or daughter was, in order to frighten them and chase them away from this mixed village where Maronites and Turkish Cypriots lived together peacefully. Maronites of the village would try to protect the Turkish Cypriots, having them sleep at night in their houses with their children but still, the harassment of this team would continue. They would also have a `representative` or two in the village at that time, taking them along this path of evil… The Greek Cypriot team from Kokkinotrimitia would kill the teacher of the village, a young man from Geunyeli and gradually during January 1964, the Turkish Cypriots of Agia Marina would start leaving in groups… My reader tells me that Abbot Andriko had a letter of thanks from Dr. Kuchuk, the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community back in 1963. `He had shown me the letter – probably that letter too, burned down in 1974 when the monastery was bombed` he says. Dr. Kuchuk thanked the Abbot Andreas from the Profiti Ilias Monastery for what he had done to save the Turkish Cypriots of Agia Marina and for preventing a massacre there. That's why, even when the checkpoints were sealed until 2003, Abbot Andreas could pass, anytime he wanted and could go back and forth between the two sides – Turkish Cypriot checkpoints had instructions to allow him to pass… Unfortunately he is not alive now but perhaps the reason why I keep on coming to Agia Marina is this: To learn also of the story of Abbot Andreas and to remember him, to write about him, to see that there were not only atrocities on this land but also humanitarian acts of bravery, saving lives of others like Abbot Andreas Frangou. `Laledes` (tulips) in bright pink, soft violet and creamy white greet us – from where we stand, next to the new monastery, we can see as far as the Morphou Bay! My reader points out Kambilli and other villages and the beauty of the whole area looks like a postcard: The beauty is timeless… Finally he shows us where his uncle had seen the three bodies in the natural pond (`havuzi`) that collected water coming down from the hill and further down, another body… Now this natural pond is covered with stones – he goes down together with Kallis and Murat Soysal to show the exact areas… This natural pond, under the new monastery and above the old monastery had a huge carob tree, he tells me. `You should have seen the days of feasting under that carob tree!` he says. `So where is it? Did someone cut it?` `No! The carob tree was also bombed and burned down…` he says… They climb up and my reader shows us the two wells in front of the new monastery… They had been 30 feet deep but one of them is filled up and is only a meter deep now – there are animal bones in it… We find a way to climb up and see the water deposit tank of the new monastery – it is of cement and is open, nothing inside. According to one of my Maronite friends, a Maronite from Agia Marina, before he left the village in 1974, had sneaked out of the village and had come up here. In the water deposit tank, he had seen the bodies of three or four persons… But the water tank is empty now… We leave the area going back through the mountain road leading to the Morphou-Nicosia main road. As we go down on this dirt track, my reader points out the caves in the Kokkino Kremmos Hill – he tells us of an underground church in this hill, very ancient, dating from times when Christianity was banned… `I heard that it collapsed` he says… I thank him for taking us here and showing us the possible burial site of four `missing` persons… I also thank the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee for coming with us in order to show them this possible burial site…   24.2.2013   Photo:  View from Agia Marina   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 10th of March, 2013.

Searching for `missing` on the hills of Agia Marina…

Searching for `missing` on the hills of Agia Marina…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   On the 5th of February 2013, Tuesday morning, together with my reader who had shown us some possible burial sites in Masari, we go to Agia Marina so that he can yet show us another place where as a child of seven, he had seen some human remains… Some bodies were lying in a deep crack among the rocks – he had gone there with his grandfather in 1975 and had counted at least three skulls but his grandfather would take him away before he could investigate more… He will show us this place on the mountain… But first we stop to see the excavations at Masari in the possible burial site that he had shown. Already on that day they had found the remains of two `missing` persons and this is just the beginning of the exhumation process… In the following days, this number becomes three and would increase as the excavations progress… By the time this article is published in POLITIS the remains of six "missing" persons are found in the place where my reader has shown to us in Masari. Archaeologists are excavating carefully, with a lot of care since the remains of the `missing` are buried on the surface… Demet Karshili, full of life and energy is the team leader – she has a bad cold, she should definitely be in bed but she is here… Chinar Karal is six months pregnant but continues to dig… There is also Giannis and Chrisanti who are excavating – it's very cold and windy but our archaeologists are digging under any circumstances – unless there is heavy rain when they have to stop… In Masari (Shahinler as it is called now) we go to have coffee with the mother and father of my reader. My reader's mother, while looking for a house to stay back in 1974 and passing through Kira (now called Mevlevi) had seen the hand of a woman in a heap of soil, next to the outside walls of a sun brick house. The hand was beautiful, with red nail polish; it was the hand of a young woman… When she saw the hand, she had said, `No! We can't stay in this village!` and they had left Kira, to come to Masari and settle here with their animals. `If I go, probably I can't find that house but it's as though it was in the centre of the village…` she says. We thank her for the coffee and start to go to Agia Marina. From the main road of Morphou-Nicosia, at some point we turn to the left and find a dirt track climbing the mountain. It's a very bad road… With us are the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Murat Soysal, Xenophon Kallis and Okan Oktay, my reader and myself and two Turkish Cypriot investigators from the Committee. We climb up to the top of the hill… The whole area belonged to the Cypriot Maronites and Agia Marina was one of their most important villages but now it's a military village. We look down at the village from where we are… The Maronites call this hill `Aspro Kremmos` which means `The White Hill` and further up is the `Kochino Kremmos`, `The Red Hill`. We stop on the `Aspro Kremmos` where there is an abandoned building with no doors or windows… This had been a tavern, a night club once, the owner having made a lot of investments in it. It had been called the `Skylap` and people from Nicosia would come all the way to Agia Marina to listen to live Greek music and dance. From my Maronite friends, I will find out that `Skylap` belonged to a Maronite policeman called Frango and from time to time, the villagers would also have weddings here. We can see the ugly scars of war on the walls of this building: Lots of bullet holes – clearly it was bombed by planes in 1974, later on becoming a military post but now completely abandoned. There is no one here and all we can hear is the sound of the strong wind that wants to blow us away from this hill top if we are not careful! My reader finds the crack among the rocky surface and shows it to us – Murat Soysal and Kallis find a way quickly to get in the crack to check… A bit further up, there is another crack and my reader calls us to show this as well. The excavation team of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had had excavations not far from here but they had found nothing – information about these cracks are new to them so they would investigate… `I was only seven but as I remember, it can be this or the other crack` he says. `I had counted at least three skulls… The bones were still intact, they had not disintegrated but my grandfather got upset that I saw this and took me away…` His grandfather had a herd of goats, around 200-300 and would keep them in a cave in this mountain, particularly when they were giving birth. He would collect and burn `tulumbe`, a kind of wild sage growing on these mountains, in order to keep the goats warm. `We would stay there, in the cave as the goats gave birth…` He misses those days… When his grandfather died, they had sold the goats and the only things that remain from those days are some very old bells, 150 years old, that they used to hang around the necks of the goats… `I keep those old bells; I know exactly which goats carried those bells` he says. My reader still tries to be with nature a lot: He likes hunting and fishing and goes out to the sea to catch swordfish and orkinos with his friends… On top of the hill, not far from the `Skylap` tavern we find hundreds of broken plates – these plates had belonged to `Skylap` and you can still see the lovely motifs on them: Red roses, bluebells, yellow wheat… The nature around us does not care what has been broken: Bright tulips and yellow lapsana flowers tell us that soon, springtime will begin… A shepherd passes by with his sheep and this beauty and this quietness brings peace to our souls, despite what has happened in this scarred land… One of my friends from Agia Marina had told me that their village had come under heavy fire from Turkish war planes on the 14th of August, 1974 – there had been a lot of Greek Cypriot soldiers around the village, those fleeing the war… Since people from Agia Marina knew the area well, they had gone to the caves in the Kochino Kremmos (The Red Hill) and had hidden there. No one from Agia Marina was killed or injured or `missing`… `But those young soldiers` she would tell me, `who did not know the area stood no chance…` Perhaps the remains that my reader has seen belongs to those soldiers who could not escape and were killed in the war… From the `Skylap` there is a small asphalt road and we take that road to go down another way and we stop at the Prophiti Ilias Monastery on our way – again, no doors, no windows and it's such a beautiful building… A Turkish Cypriot reader from Agia Marina had told me that this monastery was built in the 1940s, it was a new monastery – down below we can see the old one, again called Prophiti Ilias – the most sacred place for Maronites… The new monastery was bombed during the war and burned down… There is no one around except a young donkey tied to a tree – perhaps a shepherd tied her here and left… The asphalt road ends in front of the new monastery and becomes a dirt track – we drive through that road to see if we can get back to the main road. We pass a mandra and after the mandra, we get stuck in the mud – both Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay desperately try to get the car out of the swamp it's stuck in: They bring pieces of wood from the mandra and collect stones from the area to put under the tyres but nothing happens… For three hours this goes on… Finally, they call one of the bulldozer operators of the committee and he comes with a truck, loaded with a bulldozer – he would tie the car with a chain and pull it to get us out of the swamp. There is no way we can climb back the road we came from since the tyres are full of sticky mud – the clay soil has stuck in the cavities of the tyres… Both Murat Soysal and Okan are soaked with mud… The bulldozer operator, Mustafa Tahsin, tells us that further up there are two worse swamps but not to worry, he will pull the car with a chain on those spots – and this, he does… No matter what, we would have been stuck we realize… The investigators go back the way we came, taking my reader with them… But soon we meet them in the office, thanking my reader for showing us yet another possible burial site: We have had a misfortune of getting stuck in a swamp but still we are happy since he managed to show us a possible burial site that no one knew about…   10.2.2013   Photo: View from Agia Marina   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 3rd of March, 2013

Searching for `missing` on the hills of Agia Marina…

Searching for `missing` on the hills of Agia Marina…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   On the 5th of February 2013, Tuesday morning, together with my reader who had shown us some possible burial sites in Masari, we go to Agia Marina so that he can yet show us another place where as a child of seven, he had seen some human remains… Some bodies were lying in a deep crack among the rocks – he had gone there with his grandfather in 1975 and had counted at least three skulls but his grandfather would take him away before he could investigate more… He will show us this place on the mountain… But first we stop to see the excavations at Masari in the possible burial site that he had shown. Already on that day they had found the remains of two `missing` persons and this is just the beginning of the exhumation process… In the following days, this number becomes three and would increase as the excavations progress… By the time this article is published in POLITIS the remains of six "missing" persons are found in the place where my reader has shown to us in Masari. Archaeologists are excavating carefully, with a lot of care since the remains of the `missing` are buried on the surface… Demet Karshili, full of life and energy is the team leader – she has a bad cold, she should definitely be in bed but she is here… Chinar Karal is six months pregnant but continues to dig… There is also Giannis and Chrisanti who are excavating – it's very cold and windy but our archaeologists are digging under any circumstances – unless there is heavy rain when they have to stop… In Masari (Shahinler as it is called now) we go to have coffee with the mother and father of my reader. My reader's mother, while looking for a house to stay back in 1974 and passing through Kira (now called Mevlevi) had seen the hand of a woman in a heap of soil, next to the outside walls of a sun brick house. The hand was beautiful, with red nail polish; it was the hand of a young woman… When she saw the hand, she had said, `No! We can't stay in this village!` and they had left Kira, to come to Masari and settle here with their animals. `If I go, probably I can't find that house but it's as though it was in the centre of the village…` she says. We thank her for the coffee and start to go to Agia Marina. From the main road of Morphou-Nicosia, at some point we turn to the left and find a dirt track climbing the mountain. It's a very bad road… With us are the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Murat Soysal, Xenophon Kallis and Okan Oktay, my reader and myself and two Turkish Cypriot investigators from the Committee. We climb up to the top of the hill… The whole area belonged to the Cypriot Maronites and Agia Marina was one of their most important villages but now it's a military village. We look down at the village from where we are… The Maronites call this hill `Aspro Kremmos` which means `The White Hill` and further up is the `Kochino Kremmos`, `The Red Hill`. We stop on the `Aspro Kremmos` where there is an abandoned building with no doors or windows… This had been a tavern, a night club once, the owner having made a lot of investments in it. It had been called the `Skylap` and people from Nicosia would come all the way to Agia Marina to listen to live Greek music and dance. From my Maronite friends, I will find out that `Skylap` belonged to a Maronite policeman called Frango and from time to time, the villagers would also have weddings here. We can see the ugly scars of war on the walls of this building: Lots of bullet holes – clearly it was bombed by planes in 1974, later on becoming a military post but now completely abandoned. There is no one here and all we can hear is the sound of the strong wind that wants to blow us away from this hill top if we are not careful! My reader finds the crack among the rocky surface and shows it to us – Murat Soysal and Kallis find a way quickly to get in the crack to check… A bit further up, there is another crack and my reader calls us to show this as well. The excavation team of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had had excavations not far from here but they had found nothing – information about these cracks are new to them so they would investigate… `I was only seven but as I remember, it can be this or the other crack` he says. `I had counted at least three skulls… The bones were still intact, they had not disintegrated but my grandfather got upset that I saw this and took me away…` His grandfather had a herd of goats, around 200-300 and would keep them in a cave in this mountain, particularly when they were giving birth. He would collect and burn `tulumbe`, a kind of wild sage growing on these mountains, in order to keep the goats warm. `We would stay there, in the cave as the goats gave birth…` He misses those days… When his grandfather died, they had sold the goats and the only things that remain from those days are some very old bells, 150 years old, that they used to hang around the necks of the goats… `I keep those old bells; I know exactly which goats carried those bells` he says. My reader still tries to be with nature a lot: He likes hunting and fishing and goes out to the sea to catch swordfish and orkinos with his friends… On top of the hill, not far from the `Skylap` tavern we find hundreds of broken plates – these plates had belonged to `Skylap` and you can still see the lovely motifs on them: Red roses, bluebells, yellow wheat… The nature around us does not care what has been broken: Bright tulips and yellow lapsana flowers tell us that soon, springtime will begin… A shepherd passes by with his sheep and this beauty and this quietness brings peace to our souls, despite what has happened in this scarred land… One of my friends from Agia Marina had told me that their village had come under heavy fire from Turkish war planes on the 14th of August, 1974 – there had been a lot of Greek Cypriot soldiers around the village, those fleeing the war… Since people from Agia Marina knew the area well, they had gone to the caves in the Kochino Kremmos (The Red Hill) and had hidden there. No one from Agia Marina was killed or injured or `missing`… `But those young soldiers` she would tell me, `who did not know the area stood no chance…` Perhaps the remains that my reader has seen belongs to those soldiers who could not escape and were killed in the war… From the `Skylap` there is a small asphalt road and we take that road to go down another way and we stop at the Prophiti Ilias Monastery on our way – again, no doors, no windows and it's such a beautiful building… A Turkish Cypriot reader from Agia Marina had told me that this monastery was built in the 1940s, it was a new monastery – down below we can see the old one, again called Prophiti Ilias – the most sacred place for Maronites… The new monastery was bombed during the war and burned down… There is no one around except a young donkey tied to a tree – perhaps a shepherd tied her here and left… The asphalt road ends in front of the new monastery and becomes a dirt track – we drive through that road to see if we can get back to the main road. We pass a mandra and after the mandra, we get stuck in the mud – both Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay desperately try to get the car out of the swamp it's stuck in: They bring pieces of wood from the mandra and collect stones from the area to put under the tyres but nothing happens… For three hours this goes on… Finally, they call one of the bulldozer operators of the committee and he comes with a truck, loaded with a bulldozer – he would tie the car with a chain and pull it to get us out of the swamp. There is no way we can climb back the road we came from since the tyres are full of sticky mud – the clay soil has stuck in the cavities of the tyres… Both Murat Soysal and Okan are soaked with mud… The bulldozer operator, Mustafa Tahsin, tells us that further up there are two worse swamps but not to worry, he will pull the car with a chain on those spots – and this, he does… No matter what, we would have been stuck we realize… The investigators go back the way we came, taking my reader with them… But soon we meet them in the office, thanking my reader for showing us yet another possible burial site: We have had a misfortune of getting stuck in a swamp but still we are happy since he managed to show us a possible burial site that no one knew about…   10.2.2013   Photo: View from Agia Marina   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 3rd of March, 2013