Eight little coffins… Sevgul Uludag Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436 `Respected dead, I've never known you when you were lost. My mother was only 5 years old. Not even in one picture I saw you. Now they tell me in these little coffins thee is whatever is left out of you, bones, 39 years old. Tears for leaving our homes, the rapes, the injustice, the murdering, the refugees, the occupation… Years full of tears for a return which never comes… Today in front of us we have eight little coffins, that's you, that's what DNA says – one is `missing` only, auntie Nitsa… She was found nowhere but it doesn't matter, their souls are present, ready for the eternal trip. They will fly there where there is no war or soldiers or military… There the word occupation is unknown… There, where there is no barbed wire… What can I say to you whom I never met? To say `Adieu` now that you're leaving definitely, there are no words, there are no tears, only a simple `Adieu` and a humble flower in your memory… I wasn't lucky to know you, not even the I wish I could turn the time backwards and talk to you but it cannot be done, everything is finished. Everything except the long, distant memory… A remembrance which will keep the same name with our half country, with our proud Pentataktilo which is sending us a message with its stone palm… With the cyclamen of the mountains, with the air which will seek among the rocks and send a message to all of us… Patience until the day of return… So let the soil to be put on you be light…` The young Malvina Zgardeli says these words in the church in Latsia, the Malvina is the great granddaughter of Charalambous Zervos and Maritsa Zervou, whose remains are in these coffins… The remains of their son Andreas Zervou is also in one of the coffins. In other coffins is Loulla Kontos born in 1918, her daughter Sotiroulla born in 1948 and her son Panayiotis born in 1958. Sotiroulla had been six months' pregnant when she was killed… The remains of the husband of Loulla, Andreas Kontos, a shepherd born in 1913 have been found in another mass grave in Chatoz. Except for Andreas Kontos, they were all killed and buried together in a mass grave in Neachorio Kythrea that one of my Turkish Cypriot readers showed to me and to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee. If it wasn't for the humanity of my reader, this mass grave perhaps will never be found since the Committee had done digging in this place around 2006 and had only found one human bone, not the mass grave. My reader had called me one day and told me that her uncle had in fact seen this mass grave when he was a kid and he remembered quite well and was very upset when he found out that the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee excavation team had dug here and could not find the mass grave. `Call Sevgul` he told his cousin, `and ask her to come and see… It is there, the mass grave, I know because I saw it with my own eyes as a child…` So I would go to visit this reader on the 16th of September 2010 and she would show me and the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee the place of the mass grave, as well as another place. Okan Oktay, the Coordinator of Excavations of the Committee would confirm that in fact they dug here and could not find the mass grave… So digging would begin after we show the two possible burial sites to them and soon the remains of 7 Greek Cypriots in one mass grave and two in another burial place in the same area would be found. During the exhumation process, I would visit the mass graves and sit and watch the archaeologists digging… The family of my reader would offer lemonade and coffee and cakes to the working archaeologists and would really take care of them… The remains of the seven Greek Cypriots of Kontos and Zervos families are now in these little coffins and in the eighth coffin are the remains of Andreas Kontos that were found in Chatoz, buried together with some Greek Cypriot `missing` soldiers… The remains of the other two `missing` Greek Cypriots found in the same area at the same time have not yet been returned to their families but we have an idea of who they might be – we will just wait for the confirmation of their identities through the DNA tests. I go to the funeral together with my friend Maria Georgiadou from Kythrea whose mother, father, sister and brother are `missing`. With us is also After the speeches people start laying flowers on the coffins…I too have brought flowers and go to lay them on the coffins, looking at the photographs displayed on the small coffins… When they announce my name, saying that I had contributed to the finding of the remains of their loved ones, there is big clapping in the church and soon, I am surrounded by relatives of `missing` persons, who are still waiting for any news about their loved ones… I take their names and phone numbers, to communicate in the coming weeks, to go and visit them, to sit with them, to listen to their stories and to try to find out any information about what might have happened to them and their possible burial sites… My reader who had shown me and the Committee the mass grave could not come since she lost her grandmother this week and she too is busy at home with visitors who come to offer their condolences. But she has sent her greetings to the Zervos and Kontos families, hoping that perhaps in the future she can meet them face to face… From one night before, I had become very anxious about this funeral – I could not imagine how I would feel to see eight small coffins lined up together, even though I was not family and even though I had never met the `missing persons` found in the mass grave… I was anxious and tense and could not sleep, getting up every half hour and then finally giving up completely the idea of any sleep… I had met some of the relatives when they came with us to show more possible burial sites and we had gone to the mass grave and laid flowers with them… Today in the church as I stand with Maria and Xenia looking at these coffins and listening to the speeches that Maria translates for me to understand, I become more and more upset as I realize that Maria Rotou, the daughter of Sotiroulla whose remains are in one of the coffins, is also there… It is the first time that I am seeing Maria Rotou and my heart is beating wildly in its cage – I want to get out but I remain rooted where I am… My hands freeze and I start feeling sick… I had written the story of little Maria, who had remained alive from the massacre – she was barely one or two years old and she did not realize that her mother had been killed and continued to suck her breast… Greek Cypriot women who had been taken to Neachorio Kythrea to collect food for the prisoners of war She is here, standing with her father and I go and shake her hand – I cannot imagine what sort of a nightmare she has gone through, how deep she must have suffered and the only thing I can offer her is my condolences and the tears of my heart… The face of Maria Rotou will stay with me for many days to come – at night I will shiver and have a high fever and lay down for 48 hours simply thinking of those eight little coffins and the life of Maria Rotou who had to come face to face with war at such an early age… At least in mourning she is not alone – hundreds of people gathered here to help her and the other relatives of `missing` to bury their loved ones and to share their grief… I will recover very slowly, all the time thinking how big an injustice is war and how it's against anything that's human… The only way to continue is to continue to work to ensure a country that will not know what war is and children like Maria Rotou will not go through hell while still alive… The only way to overcome is to hold on to each other as humans, trying to understand how each and every one of us have suffered in this country and to try to make sure that our future will not have such agony… The eight little coffins should teach us that and more if only we are willing to learn… 2.5.2013 Photo: Maria Rotou with photo of her mother Sotiroulla… (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 26th of May 2013 Sunday. |
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