Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
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We continue to follow the story of the `missing` Greek Cypriot with the goatee beard and glasses that I have been writing about and we meet at the junction of Mia Milia – my reader is waiting for us in his car and we follow him… I am together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Xenophon Kallis and Murat Soysal. One of the Turkish Cypriot investigators is accompanying us… With the help of my reader Dr. Dervis Ozer, I have found another reader who had actually taken the `missing` Greek Cypriot from Epicho to Mia Milia. Now he will show us the possible burial site.
We follow my reader's car and at some point he stops and gets out…
This is Mia Milia… We are at a bridge where he says, some Turkish soldiers were stationed for a day or two…
This was the point where he and his friend had taken some Turkish soldiers they had found on their way to Chatoz from Epicho (Abohor) – the Turkish soldiers begged them to take them to their unit – otherwise if they would be late, they would be punished… So they had taken 5-6 soldiers in the white van where they had a Greek Cypriot prisoner of war with a goatee beard. They were taking him from Epicho to Chatoz – this Greek Cypriot who had sought refuge with the UN in Epicho was their prisoner of war. They had been afraid that the crowd would lynch him so had decided to take him to the military headquarters, to the commander in Chatoz. But they were diverted by this incident of some Turkish soldiers begging them and asking them to take them back to their unit.
In the car they had discovered that there was a Greek Cypriot prisoner with tied hands… They were curious about him…
As soon as they reached the spot where we are standing now, they had notified their commander that there was a Greek Cypriot prisoner and started telling stories about how their friends had been killed in the war… The Turkish Cypriots – my reader and the owner of the van – could not do anything. The Turkish soldiers would shoot and kill the Greek Cypriot with the goatee beard there and then, in front of their eyes…
`I think it was the next day when the Turkish soldiers moved away from here – they did not stay, they moved on… I passed from this spot a few days after and saw a freshly dug place, where they had shot the Greek Cypriot with the goatee beard… It was a heap of soil on an ochto (ditch) around here…`
He shows us the place…
It is an empty field, not far from the road… This road was the old road going from Mia Milia to Famagusta… There is the bridge and there is an eucalyptus tree next to the bridge…
Next to this field is the slaughterhouse for animals – this slaughterhouse was built after 1974…
I ask him whether he can show us the place where he had told me that one Greek Cypriot `missing person` had been buried in Neachorio Kythrea… He says, `Sure…` and we follow his car from Mia Milia to Neachorio Kythrea…
But before we leave Mia Milia I ask him to show me the furniture factory – one of my readers had rented the field close to the furniture factory and had planted wheat or barley there in 1975 and had found the body of a Greek Cypriot `missing` in this field. Next to this field was a battery factory – it was 100 meters to the east of the battery factory where there was a small stream… He had notified the military unit in the area but he doesn't know whether they removed that body he saw or not… I will take this other reader of mine one day to show me the exact location…
The car we are following stops and my reader shows me the furniture factory so I have an idea of the area and we move on to go to Neachorio Kythrea so that my reader can show us the possible burial site of a `missing` Greek Cypriot from Neachorio Kythrea.
This place is next to the mosque as he had told me…
His father had told my reader that in this place, a Greek Cypriot from the village had been buried, someone named A…. who had had a mandra around here…
This was the Turkish Cypriot mahalle until 1963 when they had to flee the village – over time houses were demolished and we can see the ruins now…
Someone had thought of rebuilding the family house here, he says, that's why he had his plot cleaned and straightened out after 1974 when the Turkish Cypriots originally from this village Neachorio Kythrea – Minarelikeuy – had returned.
`But then they decided not to build a house here since it's too close to a military area` he says…
`Where are they?`
`Just over there… And their plot was too close to the mosque – but they had it cleaned. When they were cleaning it, I was not in the village but my father was. Later on my father told me that they had found a leg bone while cleaning… It was my father who had told me that he had heard that they had buried A…. from this village here, just inside the walls of the mandra. Before, there used to be some walls here because we had our houses and we had our mandras… So within these 5-6 meters you can check whether you can find remains… I am not sure if they removed him or not but you can check…`
We take photos and coordinates and I ask him whether we can go to Kythrea as well…
`Sure` he says and once again we follow him to Kythrea…
According to his information, an old woman had been buried in a field but now a three storey building has been erected in this formerly empty field… It looks quite new… There is no garden around so perhaps the remains have been destroyed during the building of this apartment…
`I heard that an old woman living in the house across or the one behind had been buried here` he says…
`If we speak with Maria Georgiadou` I say to Kallis, `if I can bring her here or if I show her photos of these houses, she will definitely know whose houses these were and who are `missing` from these houses…`
Maria Georgiadou, my dear friend from Kythrea whose mother, father, brother and sister are `missing` since 1974 has been the greatest help in the search for the `missing`…
We thank my reader and we say goodbye to him…
`If I have been of any help, I am not sure` he says… `What have I done?`
`Of course you have been of help… You showed us three different possible burial sites… If everyone was like you, speaking up, we would be able to find so many more `missing`… I thank you so much…` I tell him.
He says goodbye and we leave Kythrea…
When in Nicosia I call my friend Maria Georgiadou and we agree to meet one day so that I can show her the photos – I have some names in mind and I suspect that the `missing` buried in the possible burial site that my reader showed us might be from that particular family and I tell Maria this name… We will check it and work on it together to find out who might have been in those houses across this possible burial site…
The situation of Kythrea is a tragedy – there are so many `missing` from Kythrea and yet it is so difficult to find the burial sites… We had only managed together with Maria to locate the burial site of two `missing` old men – Kaniklides and Pramadeftis… The new possible burial site that my reader has shown me is not far from their burial site, almost in the same neighbourhood… Once while installing a water tank for a school, accidentally they had found the remains of some other `missing persons` in Kythrea but I don't know whether they have been identified through DNA tests yet…
My reader who had shown us these places had said, `It is such misfortune that the bulldozer operators and the guy with the truck helping them, they all died years ago… Only they knew where they were burying the Greek Cypriots killed in the war…`
The misfortune of Kythrea is that there had been no Turkish Cypriots living in this village so there were no witnesses to see where the `missing` were buried. It was an empty village… Only after October 1974 and February 1975 Turkish Cypriot refugees were settled in this village that had been a pure Greek Cypriot village once.
With Maria, we have shown some other possible burial sites of some `missing persons` from Kythrea but these have not been excavated yet…
So we wait but while waiting, we continue to investigate…
12.6.2014
Photo: Possible burial site of a `missing` Greek Cypriot in Mia Milia...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 22nd of June, 2014 Sunday.
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