Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
The story unfolds to reveal another part of the truth of what might have happened to the `missing` person with the goatee beard and the glasses… The glasses the story of which we had shared here, in these pages some months ago…
With the help of one of my readers, Dr. Dervish Ozer who had followed the story of the glasses of the `missing` Greek Cypriot, we find more information…
The Greek Cypriot young soldier who had a goatee beard and was wearing glasses had took refuge with the UN soldiers based in Ebicho (Abohor) village on the 14th of August 1974. Turkish Cypriots of Ebicho had left the village due to the war and when they returned and found out that there was a Greek Cypriot in the village who had taken refuge with the UN soldiers in the centre of the village, they had surrounded the building, demanding from the UN to give him to them… Finally they had got him from the UN and the young Greek Cypriot soldier's glasses had fallen on the floor during the scuffle. A Turkish Cypriot from Ebicho whose glasses were broken while escaping the village, had picked these glasses up and wore them for years… My reader, the short story writer Dr. Dervish Ozer had followed the story of the glasses, had found the glasses, had taken them back and after identifying who the person with the goatee and the glasses might be, some months
ago we had given back the glasses to the wife and brother of the `missing` person. The relatives of the `missing` Greek Cypriot would also make investigation about which UN contingent to whom the soldiers belonged in Ebicho and we had found out that they had been Finnish soldiers. They would write to the UN, to the Finnish Embassy in Cyprus and to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee for further investigation about the fate of the `missing` person…
We knew he had been taken by some soldiers from the UN but what had happened after that?
Dr. Dervish Ozer would continue his investigations in the village and would call me couple of times to tell me what he had found out. Finally he has more concrete information about who had taken him and put him in a car to take him away… He gives me two names, one of whom I contact… He too is one of my readers and we sit down to talk about what had happened… He is not from Ebicho but from another village in Mesaoria. As he talks, the story starts unfolding:
`I had been the commander of a nearby village and when we saw what was happening in the village, we thought the villagers might lynch the Greek Cypriot with the goatee – so I told a friend with a white van, `Let's take him to Chatoz as a prisoner of war to the commander there to save him from being lynched…' So we took him and put him in the white van of my friend and started going towards Chatoz… As soon as we passed the village Petra tou Digheni five or six Turkish soldiers stopped us. `We lost contact with our unit` they said. `Please take us to Mia Milia quickly because if we don't show up at our unit in Mia Milia, we will be punished…` We told them we were going to Chatoz but they insisted so we took them in the van and turned around to go back to Mia Milia… When they saw the Greek Cypriot prisoner with tied hands in the van, they started asking who he was and we told them that we were going to take him to the central command in
Chatoz as a prisoner of war.
We reached Mia Milia and the Turkish soldiers got down and went to find their commander, informing him that there is a Greek Cypriot prisoner in the car. They said, `Bring him here so we can see…`
They started telling their commander that they had lost friends and cousins in the war and in front of our eyes, they shot him… It all happened in front of our eyes and we were helpless… We left Mia Milia with my friend to go back to the village Ebicho.
After 15 days or a month when I passed from the place he had been shot, I had seen a freshly dug place, a heap of soil… I thought, `Probably they buried him here…`
While we were in the van taking him to Chatoz the Greek Cypriot had told me that he had been an electrician, that he lived in Agios Dometios, that he had two kids, one boy and a girl…`
`The person we know who had taken refuge with the UN had no kids, he had been newly married` I tell my reader, the witness… `Perhaps he said this in order to have mercy… Would you show us this possible burial site?`
`Of course` he says… `If you want, we can go now and I can show you…`
`It is better if I arrange for the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to come with us to show them so we don't have to go twice` I say to him…
`Anything is fine with me…` he says…
He tells me of another possible burial site in another village close to Ebicho.
`My father, before he died told me that this Greek Cypriot from Neachorio Kythrea had been buried in a place that I know… It is across the mosque… My father had told me that his name was A….. – he had been a big guy, tall, he had a mandra of cows in the village…`
`You can show us this place as well` I say…
`They had straightened this place out but perhaps his remains are still there…`
`We can check… We were actually looking for someone buried across the mosque but could not find anything` I tell him…
And in Kythrea he knows of another possible burial site of an old woman… `But they had built houses there so I am not sure if the burial site has remained or whether it has been destroyed during the building of houses` he says…
I am grateful for the information this reader and witness has provided… I have already spoken to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and we will go so that our witness can show these possible burial sites…
I thank my reader Dr. Dervish Ozer too for his immeasurable help in finding out details and witnesses during our search for the `missing` persons… He helps to unfold stories that make up our history and he does this with only the agenda of a human heart: For healing wounds of all relatives of `missing` whether they are Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot…
1.6.2014
Photo: The only thing left behind from the `missing` Greek Cypriot are his glasses that Dr. Dervis Ozer found and returned to his wife after 40 years... Now we are searching for his possible burial site...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 15th of June 2014, Sunday.
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