Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
Back in May 2011, a Turkish Cypriot reader had called to tell me a story about Exometochi…
`I had been 10-11 years old in 1976` she said… `We had gone to the house of a relative in Exometochi… The house was on the northwest of the village, at the exit of the village. We were playing around in the field near the house that I tripped on something and fell down. Where I fell was actually a burial site… I had found the arms of a woman who looked like a nun… She was dressed like a nun and the bones of her arms were still in the sleeves… As you can imagine, I was so frightened and horrified… I read everything you have been writing about the `missing` so I wanted to share this with you so that you can go and investigate this place…`
I had thanked her with all my heart and sometime later had gone to find the field she had been talking about…
After finding the field I had arranged with the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to go and show them this possible burial site. This had been three years ago, back in October 2011.
Three years later the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee start excavations in the field that my reader had told me about and I had shown to the Committee…
And they start finding the remains of `missing` persons… They find the remains of the woman, just as my reader had told me… But it doesn't stop there: They find the remains of three more `missing persons`, a total of four `missing` persons have been found – one woman, three men and the exhumations continue…
I call the mother of my reader who had told me about this burial site to inform her and to thank her…
`If you dig more, you will find more… The whole village knew about this burial site` she says…
I feel grateful to Sema and her daughter… She too has a brother `missing` from Paphos from 1964 and her husband had been killed in 1974… Although we tried hard, we could not find his remains… She was from the Mononero village near Episkopi but when the village was burnt down in 1958 they had moved to Ktima, Paphos. Sema Kilinch who now lives in Famagusta had told me the story of her brother and her village Mononero back in 2010… She had said:
`Some Greek Cypriot fascists from around Episkopi had threatened to kill the Turkish Cypriots from Mononero and they had felt frightened and left in 1958. After the Turkish Cypriots left, some Greek Cypriots had burnt down and demolished the houses in Mononero which was a Turkish Cypriot village in order to make sure that they would not return… But for instance my grandmother had remained in the village. Some people would go from time to time to look after their trees… My brother Zuhtu had had polio and his hand and leg had been affected… But he was a very strong person… He was a gardener and always missed his village and would always try to go to Mononero to look after our trees. Even when Turkish Cypriots were not allowed to get out of the Turkish Cypriot area in Paphos, he would still find a way to get out… Sometimes he was punished by the Turkish Cypriot authorities for not listening to them and still going to his village… In the summer
of 1964, he left Paphos to go to Mononero and never came back. My mother cried for years, she expected him to return any day – she never believed that he was killed: He was `missing`…
My husband Coshkun Mavrali was arrested in Paphos in August 1974 and was beaten up very hard – they had arrested the Turkish Cypriot men in Ktima and beating them up, had taken them to the football field. After they released him, he died a few days later due to internal bleeding from these beatings. He was only 37… I had three small daughters: they were aged five, six and seven… We lost four persons from our family: My husband's brother Kemal Mavrali was killed in 1964 in Ktima, Paphos. My brother went `missing` in the summer of 1964… My husband's cousin Ihsan Kilinch was also killed – they were relatives of Ihsan Ali… And my husband was killed in 1974…
In August 1975 we came to Famagusta… I was a seamstress and I tried to raise my children the best I could… I have always been in the forefront of the struggle for peace on this island because they create wars for some interests and only the innocent people are killed… I saw that the fire burns where it hits… While our poor kids of 15 years old were given guns to wait in military posts, the rich people were hiding under their beds… I saw that…
When I first went to Paphos with a group of women, I couldn't speak, I couldn't stop crying – I was remembering all those killings, all those memories of war… Then I went again with my daughters to our village Mononero – our house was made of stone, it has been demolished – perhaps the stones were useful for them… Each time I went to Paphos and Episkopi, I asked about my `missing` brother Zuhtu but no one told me anything… They all treated me well, invited me to lunch and so on but never told me anything about my `missing` brother…
Why was this country divided? It was in the interest of America… I know that this war was created in cooperation with Turks and Greeks, they made this war, they took the place they wanted and did not go forward. That was the agreement – there was an agreement on partition. Why? So that there would not be communism… At that time AKEL was strong, there were a lot of socialists who were struggling together… In the end all the innocent people died… They did whatever they could to partition this island…`
A kind hearted Greek Cypriot reader had told us about what he had found out about the `missing` brother of Sema, Zuhtu Mehmet Emirali, we had gone and visited him and he had shown us the place Zuhtu had been killed and possibly buried but during the excavations, nothing was found. Perhaps those who had killed him later had moved his body elsewhere… Although we had not been able to find the remains of her brother, this Turkish Cypriot relative of `missing` and her daughter has helped us to find the remains of four Greek Cypriot `missing persons` and this shows what a big heart they have… It is actually not very often that we meet such humanitarian people on our island – generally relatives who lost someone are so much immersed in their own pain that they have no energy left to try to help others with similar pain… But I thank the earth for having known Sema Kilinch for many years – she is and will always be a corner stone for the struggle for
the reunification of this island… Despite her big losses, she retains her humanitarian heart on this divided island…
18.10.2014
Photo: Sema Kilinch, the woman with a big human heart...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 2nd of November 2014, Sunday.
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