Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
One day I receive a message from Christina Frangou:
`Dear Sevgul,
I was given your name from our mutual friend, Andreas Maras. I have already known about you and the award you were given and consider you as a brave and special compatriot. The reason I am writing to you is that I think you can help me to find some compatriots from the Turkish Cypriot community.
Here is my story: My aunt Kyriakou Frangou, resident of Nea Smyrni, Ougou Foskolou (Hougo Foskolo) Street, 27, a street very close to the Medieval Walls of Famagusta and the church of Saint Georgios Xorinos, was killed by Turkish soldiers on the 16th of August 1974. When the night and the dark came, her Turkish Cypriot friends and neighbours dug a grave in the front yard of her house and buried her. Then they found a way and informed her brother and her nephews about her. Our family will be very honoured if some of these people came to her funeral on the 21st of March here in Limassol at the cemetery of Sfalagiotissa. The only information I have are two names: Vedia Ismail and Salih, a black Turkish Cypriot who was a policeman. Certainly we will also be very honoured if you also come to my aunt's funeral. Looking forward to speaking to you soon…
Christina Frangou.`
I write back to her after trying to find the people she was mentioning:
`Dear Christina,
A friend from Famagusta checked and Vedia Ismail is no longer alive… She also went to the house of Mr. Salih but no one was at home. She will try again when she goes to Famagusta… If you send me a few lines about your aunt and a photo of her, I would like to write a few lines about her and her friendship in Famagusta…`
Christina also writes on Facebook, trying to locate her auntie's friends:
`Next Saturday, on the 21st of March at 10 o'clock in the morning, it's the funeral of my late aunt Kyriakou Frangou who was killed by Turkish soldiers during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. She was buried in the yard of her house by her Turkish Cypriot friends and neighbours where she stayed until February 2011. The current owner of her house always planted fresh flowers on her grave just to show his respect and to honour her. She was unearthed and identified through DNA method. Forty years have passed since then but there may be Turkish Cypriots among her friends who are still alive. If there was a chance to find them and invite them just to thank them for what they did that terrible day, it would be the best honour to her memory.`
Finally we can't find the Turkish Cypriot friends of Kyriakou Frangou but as promised, Christina sends me the story of her aunt:
`Kyriakou Frangou was born in Ayia Triada Yialousas in 1909… When she was still very young, she had moved to Varoshia where she started working in the orange orchards of the area Nea Smyrni, not far from the walls of Famagusta… She watered and took care of orange trees… She loved the trees, the flowers and birds… She loved all the people who were close to her… She did not distinguish whether a neighbour was Turkish or Greek Cypriot, she used to say that every human being was a child of God and she loved and helped her fellow people just the same…
There, she made her home, in a semi-detached house next to her brother's house…
She never got married so she loved any child, relatives or not, the same…
That terrible day, when the Turkish army invaded Famagusta and when everybody were leaving their homes to save their lives, she didn't leave.
She told her brother and the other relatives that she couldn't leave her house and her birds… She had chicken and small chicks…
When one cousin asked her to come with him to his house, she said:
`But what about my babies? I cannot leave my babies…`
The `babies` were the little chicks, the poulli as we say it…
Before the soldiers got near her house, her Turkish Cypriot friends were begging her to hide her in their homes but she did not accept their offer lest the soldiers found her there and killed them as well. She was killed in her front yard of her house…
When the night and the dark came, her neighbours buried her in her yard, next to her jasmine which so much she loved… When we visited her house in 2009, the new owner showed us a flower bed full of beautiful flowers… That's where she was buried…
She was unearthed in February 2011 and after all the formalities had been done, we buried her officially and according to her religion on the 21st March 2015.
Name: Kyriakou Frangou
Place of birth: Ayia Triada Yialousas
Place of death: Nea Smyrni Famagusta
Date of death: August 1974
Cause of death:
1. Trauma from bullet shot on the chest
2. Trauma from bullet shot on temple
3. Trauma from a bullet on the legs.
Reason of death:
CIVIL WAR CAUSED BY THOSE WHO DOMINATE THE PEOPLES OF THE WHOLE PLANET AND ROB THEIR FORTUNES AND THEIR FORTUNE.
The above information has been taken from the death certificate… `
I call Christina to tell me more and this takes her back to her memories of her childhood with her aunt…
When her aunt was taking her to the orange orchards at the age of four or five…
Her aunt would work and she would play…
`She told me to listen to birds… She was teaching me the different sounds of birds…
She loved animals…
In those years people couldn't be considered `animal friendly` - they loved animals if they gave them food… But my aunt was very kind to these animals… She would always tell me `They are also creatures of God…`
Now that I speak to you about these things, I realize that the character I formed was also her work… She taught me things about nature…
Since she didn't have children and she loved children, she was always offering things… She took care of all of us… She was a person who wanted to offer…
What she loved most was jasmine…`
The woman from Ayia Triada who spent her life gardening in the orange orchards of Varosha, the woman who loved nature, the woman who did not leave her house because she had small chicks and she did not want to leave behind was just another of the innocent victims of war… She now rests in Limassol, in the cemetery of Sfalagiotissa…
I had been there the day they were beginning the exhumations in the front yard of her house…
I am so happy that Christina Frangou contacted me – next time I go to Limassol, I will meet Christina and perhaps she can take me to her aunt's grave where I can lay some flowers, perhaps jasmine…
She is tragically gone but her respect and love for nature lives in Christina and in all the people that she touched with her love and care…
May you rest in peace Kyriacou Frangou… The friendship you planted will live through the friendship we have now with Christina… Nothing goes to `waste` on this earth, nothing that is good, nothing that is created with love and care… All the good things always find a way to continue to grow and bring more love to others…
4.4.2015
Photo: Kyriacou Frangou
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 3rd of May, 2015 – Sunday.
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