Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
The per capita pain of our friends in the photo is immeasurable... all of them have suffered - all of them relatives of "missing" and victims of massacres... Christos Efthymiou, leader of our association "Together We Can" (bi-communal initiative of relatives of missing persons) whose brother is "missing" is standing next to Christos Neocleous whose brother is also "missing" - they are chatting with Huseyin Rustem Akansoy who is also in our association and whose whole family was massacred at Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa... Next to him is Kutlay Erk whose father was taken from the General Hospital in Nicosia in 1963 and remained "missing" for almost half a century... Ayshe Guler, one of our correspondents of YENIDUZEN newspaper took this photo at the event of CMP entitled "In Search of Our Missing" on the 12th of April 2014 Saturday morning at the Goethe Institute on the Green Line in Nicosia...
There were other relatives of `missing` persons who came to this full day event, among them more relatives of `missing` who cooperate and who don't let the rivers of blood that ran between our two main communities come between them… There was Sevilay Berk with her husband Mustafa – Sevilay's mother and father were `missing` from Pervolia, Trikomo since May 1964 and we found their remains with the help of one of my readers and another Greek Cypriot relative who has a `missing` son from Synchari – Shefika and Huseyin Kamber, the milkman of the area had been kidnapped, put in the prison in the police station of Trikomo and kept there for some time. Sevilay had gone together with the UN looking for her parents to the Trikomo Police Station –while the police told her that `They would do everything to find them`, it was in fact the police who kept them there until they were taken at some point and killed and their bodies thrown in a well just
outside Trikomo, next to a warehouse for keeping wheat… Sevilay, the eldest daughter had remained with four younger siblings, the youngest being barely two years old… Sevilay was a young girl of barely 17 and had to take care of the kids, having to become both a mother and a father to them – after a few months her aunt's son from Avgolida would come and they would pack a few furniture in a car and leave Pervolia, their sun brick house… They would tie their cows near the school and would try to take care of their small flock but over time this wouldn't work out… The 16 year old Ayla would try to take care of the cows but then she would move in with an aunt and get married at an early age and start living in Famagusta.
The other sister, Nurten had been 14 years old at the time of the disappearance of her parents and she would continue to study and later on get a scholarship and would study in Ankara to become a pharmacist. The 12 year old brother Turgut with the help of Sevilay would graduate from high school and would continue his studies in Izmir – Smyrna – to become an economist.
The youngest sibling was barely 2 years old – there was a family from Pyla who wanted to adopt her and she moved to Pyla to live with her new parents, a bright kid who would go on to study optics and later on psychiatry in London – she would get married in London and continue her life there…
All of these written in a few paragraphs are easy to say but it was Sevilay who devoted her whole life to her siblings and who took care of them and who made sure that they would all be educated… `My mother left us a very good heritage and that was good family manners` she says… `We used that capital to stay together and to survive, with my struggle we are always together, I still take care of them and I am very happy to do that…`
From time to time they would hear that children of those killed during the conflict would be given some aid, say while they are getting married and she would go to enquire and ask for help but they would send her away since they knew no one…
She comes to the event with her wonderful husband Mustafa who worked for many years in the printing house of Dr. Fazil Kuchuk as a typesetter – her wonderful, understanding husband who always gave her full support in her plight for her own `missing` parents, as well as for all the other `missing` persons – both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot. Her close friend Maria Georgiadou is also at the event – our Maria from Kythrea whose mother, father, sister and brother are `missing` is one of the leaders of `Together We Can` association, working together with relatives of `missing` and victims of war, both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot. Maria has a huge human heart that has space for everyone – she has so much love for nature and humans that she can fit the whole world in her heart… She works tirelessly for not only the `missing` of her village Kythrea but for all… Taking care of her house, of her own children, of her own grandchildren and
nowadays she has extra work as she takes care of little Christie, a toddler, the daughter of one of her grandchildren! Making jam and lemonade, cooking apple pie and pineapple tarts, she embraces life with so much love, her devoted husband George next to her… She and Sevilay are very close friends and so are their husbands George and Mustafa… Maria comes to the event with Xenia – Xenia is the wife of her `missing` brother and next to Xenia is her granddaughter…
Ali Esendaghli from Petrofani from our group is also here – he too lost his father and five-six relatives in Petrofani, old people who had remained in the village and who had been executed – some of them were bedridden – and buried in a water well outside the village… He too is one of the pioneers in this bi-communal association and who helps to find the remains of other `missing persons` whether they are Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot…
Spyros Hadjinicolaou is also here with his young wife, pregnant and expecting to have a baby in the coming summer months… Spyros, a young lawyer, the son of the judge from Gialousa who had been killed and buried in the lake of Galatia… Spyros who spoke up for peace and reconciliation at the funeral of his father when we found his remains in the lake… Spyros who dared to speak up when others who did not lose precious loved ones remained silent… Despite his own tragedy of losing his father who remained `missing` for almost 40 years, he would manage to stand up for something better: Peace and reconciliation on this island…
Other relatives of `missing` I know or whom I meet for the first time also come and find me and we try to work out the puzzles with `missing` pieces for the past 40 and 50 years… I introduce them to Murat Soysal, the Turkish Cypriot assistant and Xenophon Kallis, the Greek Cypriot assistant at the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee so that they have a chance of dialogue about their precious `missing` ones…
Later on as I publish the photo of Huseyin with Christos Efthymiou and Christos Neocleous and Kutlay on the Facebook, friends make comments…
One of them says:
`This photo is like the remnants from an old Greek tragedy… These are stains that will always remain there – we will get our lessons from these but the stains will always remain with all the Cypriots, we will never be able to clean up these stains…`
Another friend writes:
`Thank you Sevgul Uludag for your tireless work to help heal all Cypriots, so we may move on... Friends, please take notice. This kind of pain and suffering of having a missing relative knows no religion, ethnicity or gender…`
Letty Roy Rivera who also has a `missing` son in Mexico and who is leading relatives of `missing persons` in Mexico writes:
`Sevgul Uludag, you inspire me. Yes, together we can. Greetings from México…`
Kutlay Erk, who is in the photo, also writes:
`This wound not heal without finding all `missing` persons. I was 11 years old when my father went `missing` and now I am expecting grandchildren. Still I feel the pain. With my deepest love and best regards to the relatives of `missing` persons and all those who are in solidarity with them…`
These are the people who should be at the negotiations table – the relatives of `missing` persons who work together for many years to heal the wounds of our country… These are the people our two main communities should listen to, the UN, the US, the EU `experts` at the `negotiations` should listen to at the `negotiations` table because they can only lead our communities towards peace since they know what sort of destruction war has done to them from their own very tragic personal stories… These are the people who can build the infrastructure for peace on this island and such an infrastructure is much more important than any petrol or gas, any `negotiations` for land, anything `material` - the infrastructure for peace is something we will build if we don't want any more tragedies on the island… And it is only those who believe that `Together we can`, can do this…
21.4.2014
Photo: Christos Efthymiou, Christos Neocleous, Huseyin Rustem Akansoy and Kutlay Erk - per capita pain in this photo is immeasurable...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 11th of May 2014, Sunday.
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