Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
We go once again to Ebicho (Abohor) village outside Nicosia on the 25th of February 2014 Tuesday – we've been coming to this village so many times and yet there is more work to do, more investigations to follow…
Together with Murat Soysal, Xenophon Kallis and Okan Oktay we go to a spot where there is a possible burial site. One of the Turkish Cypriot investigators, Hikmet Selchuklu is also with us…
We wait for my reader to come from the fields – he has his sheep out and he comes quickly to show us the spot where there has been no digging yet.
Back in 1974, after the 14th of August, a Greek Cypriot soldier was caught and taken to the centre of the village. He was on the edge of the village and an old Turkish Cypriot woman had given him water and food… Most probably this old woman had not left like the Turkish Cypriots of the village on the 20th of July but had remained in her house…
Later when the Turkish Cypriots would return to the village after the 14th of August they would discover him and take him to the centre of the village. One of the children present there on that day would tell me the story years later, that they would set up a `court` in the street, they would `judge` him and then as he would be leaving, he would try to take the gun of a Turkish Cypriot soldier and then he would be shot. He would be taken further up to this field where they had been keeping straw for animals… They would put the dead body among some straw and try to burn the straw… According to my readers, he would later be buried in this field…
My reader tells us that for some construction his son tried to take some soil from this field but those in the village told them `Not to dig…` That `if they dug too much, they would encounter the bones of that Greek Cypriot killed in the village…`
He shows us the rough location… Many years ago, there had been digging but not here, much further up…
Other readers had also told me about this place and I had written about it years ago… But it's better to show it to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee so that they can list it as a possible burial site to be excavated.
He also tells us of some burials in Voni village… Voni was a place where they kept Greek Cypriots as prisoners of war.
`There had been two natural deaths, because of age` he tells us.
`They were buried in the yard of the church where there was a cemetery… But they had also brought three dead bodies I don't know from where – they were buried just outside the church, outside the wall – to the south of the church – maybe five meters away from the wall of the church…`
There is another burial site of about six `missing` Greek Cypriots in Voni, not far from the church, under a fig tree but it has been many years since I had written about this… He too, is not sure of the details now…
He is in a hurry to get back to his sheep so we thank him and say goodbye and go to the site where archaeologists are busy digging at the side of the road.
We say hello to the archaeologists and as we leave them we meet another reader of mine…
`I told the archaeologists' he says `that I had seen three dead bodies where they are digging now… I am not sure if they were buried there or not but I had seen not one but three…`
According to one of my readers, these three persons were from the group arrested in the house of Frosso Dimou in Voni… They had been trying to escape from the shooting…
He tells us of another place where he had seen two dead bodies after the war while driving on the dirt track between Voni and Ebicho…
`Why don't you get in the car and we go and you show us` I tell him and he comes with us to go outside Ebicho, to show us the place where he had seen two dead bodies…
`This was called the well of Karavas` he says… `The two bodies I saw were not far from the well, in the middle of the field… They were civilian… It looked as though they were trying to escape and shot…`
There has been digging but not here, across the other field from the dirt track, further up…
We thank him and take him back to the village.
Next we go to the rubbish damp area – the mukhtar of the village, together with a young friend are waiting for us there… They are developing the rubbish damp – they have fenced it and put up a gandjelli so that no one can enter and dump rubbish here… They are planting trees and will make it a picnic area…
We wanted to meet for this reason because here, in the rubbish damp is a possible burial site and we show this to the mukhtar and he speaks to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee… According to an eye witness, they had buried around 8-10 `missing` Greek Cypriots in the havara cavity as I had written in these pages before… It would be a pity to leave this possible burial site as it is since the little plants they have planted a few days ago will grow and become trees and when it will be time for digging, it will be more problematic… Plus, if there are in fact people buried here, these trees will probably damage the bones, taking calcium from the bones, wrapping their roots around the bones… That's why I arranged this urgent visit to speak with the mukhtar so that if the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee decides to exhume here, they can act quickly…
Okan Oktay, the Coordinator of Exhumations reassures the mukhtar that if they take out the trees they had planted, they will replant them when the excavations are done.
We thank the mukhtar and get out of the rubbish damp – it has been cleaned and maybe in 15-20 years, it will have a different appearance when the small plants will grow into trees… They have planted pine trees and cypress trees…
The planting of trees here shows us that life does not sit idle and wait for us… Life continues… The land where `missing persons` are buried changes, roads are built, houses are built, trees are planted… Even the `marks` people made in their minds about certain possible burial sites change: A fig tree or a carob tree might be cut, a dirt track might be built for the fishermen to use like it happened in Yialousa once and all of these things confuse witnesses about burial sites… In Yialousa there had been no dirt track for fishermen and there was a burial site of two Turkish Cypriots `missing` from 1964 – I had taken the witness there and when he saw the dirt track, he was quite surprised… We had to take him there twice and finally the remains of the two `missing` were found but it showed us how things have changed dramatically over the years and how some possible burial sites, if we are not quick enough, might disappear forever, making it very
difficult to find… Perhaps this is the other big tragedy in Cyprus and the other big `crime` - waiting for over 40 or 50 years to start exhuming possible burial sites… Years have flown by and our geography changed in some places like Mia Milia completely, making it more difficult to find the possible burial sites…
Soon after our visit to the rubbish damp in Ebicho, the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee starts excavations there… While the excavations continue, another reader calls to tell me that his brother has information that two `missing persons` were also buried in the next havara cavity just behind where digging has begun – it is good to explore this second site in the rubbish damp as well… Immediately I inform the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee so that they can investigate further…
Soon after the digging begins, it stops because apparently some people at some point in time have dumped asbestos in the big havara cavity… Since asbestos is carcinogenic, the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee has to stop the excavations in the rubbish damp at Ebicho…
If you know of possible burial sites, it is time to speak up now… Because life does not leave any space - as years go by, geography changes, making it more difficult to find possible burial sites…
2.3.2014
Photo: Digging at the havara cavity in Ebicho (Abohor) village...
(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 23rd of March 2014, Sunday.
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