Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
We go to Larnaka to speak to some youngsters about `missing` - myself and relatives of `missing` persons and victims of war, members of `Together We Can`, The Bi-Communal Initiative of Relatives of Missing Persons and Victims of War.
Among them is Sevilay Berk from Pervolia of Trikomo whose mother and father were `missing` from May 1964… The remains of the `missing` parents of Sevilay were found in a well we had shown to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee not once but twice and when exhumations took place, they found them at the bottom of the well – a Turkish Cypriot reader had helped us to show this well by introducing us to an old Greek Cypriot who had been living in the vicinity of this well and we had gone with him to visit his house… He had willingly come and had shown us the well – another witness had shown me this well and we had shown it to the committee but the well was not exhumed. Now with the old man who had heard a noise and had got out and had witnessed that something strange was going on around that well and next morning seeing a woman's shoe and some blood around the well, his testimony would perhaps ensure the digging of that well…
In order to cover the smell from the two persons killed and thrown in the well (Sevilay's mother Shefika and father Huseyin Ahmet Kamber), they would fill the well with sand, the killers. They had been kept in the police station at Trikomo, we would find out from another kind hearted Greek Cypriot reader and they would even joke about these two innocent persons kept there… But only for one night… Next day or next night they would be killed. And the person serving there who is supposedly their murderer would come and boast about his newly acquired sweater, showing everyone and bragging how clever he had been since he made the Turkish Cypriot take off his sweater before killing him… `Otherwise the sweater would have had a hole in it but now, see how good it looks on me` he would say to those at the police station back in 1964…
Sevilay has become a symbol of peace and friendship in Cyprus – despite her huge suffering, she knows how to differentiate between the good and the bad people of Cyprus and she knows and says that all communities have good people and evil people. She knows that the person involved in the killing of her parents is an evil person. And those around that evil person were evil as well, catching innocent people and executing them point blank without ever giving a thought that they had families, wives, children waiting for them to get back… They were evil to the core and would be active not only in 1964 but also in 1974 continuing to kill innocent people…
One of them was on his death bed when I had asked for help from a friend, a relative of a `missing person` from Greece to try to speak to him through his son… He had certainly been involved in the burial and cover up of these murders of 1963 and 1964… But my friend from Greece was not successful in getting any sort of information from him – there had been a flat denial and he would not give any information about where he had buried other `missing` Turkish Cypriots or about their fate… Some had been `missing` from Agios Andronikoudes (Topchukoy) – they had gone to Trikomo to get petrol from the Petrolina Petrol Station on the 2nd of January 1964. Ismail Mustafa Balci who had eight children was in the lorry of Ahmet Ali Osman who had five children back at home and accompanying them was the young Fuat Hasan Gulali who had been single, a 23 year old young man… According to the information sources they had been arrested at the petrol station by
the same `evil` people, the same Greek Cypriot `gang` who had taken Sevilay's parents. According to the mother of Fuat Hasan Gulali, a Greek Cypriot policeman was involved in their arrest at the petrol station. And since that ominous date that is 2nd of January 1964 there has been no news from them… The person whom was said to have been involved in their burial has passed away, refusing to give any sort of information either to us, through our Greek friend or to anyone else… The person who is said to be their murderer has refused to speak until now, denying ever being involved although many know and pronounce his name spitefully…
Among our group of relatives of `missing` is a very kind hearted person, Panayiotis Eleftheriou who had been only a 10 year old kid in 1974… His mother Elpiniki, his father Lefteris Eleftheriou and his small brother Christakis who had been only seven years old have been `missing` since 1974. Elpiniki had just given birth to her third child, a baby girl in July 1974 and leaving her and Panayiotis with the grandmother and grandfather, she had gone with her husband and her younger son Christakis back to the `northern part` when they got stuck in the village Masari. They had been trying to go back to Vasilia, their village, in order to get some stuff from their house. A Turkish Cypriot co-villager would offer to take them there and although the other Greek Cypriots who had got stuck in Masari had told them not to go they had stayed in Masari with this Turkish Cypriot. The rest of the Greek Cypriots had gone to the southern part of our island when some
Turkish soldiers had opened a `safe corridor` for them to go… Since then Elpiniki and her husband and son are `missing`…
Recently Panayiotis has appealed to the Turkish Cypriots of Vasilia in order to find out the fate of his parents and his brother. With the help of another relative of a `missing` person, Michalis Yiangou Savva, he created a small brochure with the photographs of his `missing` relatives and Michalis had his cousin translate it to Turkish. They visited Vasilia and distributed this brochure to the Turkish Cypriot villagers… In the brochure Panayiotis said:
`Lefteris Eleftheriou, the son of Efstathios from Vasilia was 30 years old.
Elpiniki Eleftheriou the daughter of Christakis from Vasilia was 32 years old.
Christakis Eleftheriou from Vasilia was 7 years old.
All of them have been `missing` since 17th of August 1974 when they had been arrested in Massari close to Morphou.
My dear brothers and sisters,
My name is Panagiotis Eleftheriou, I am the elder son of Lefteri and Elpiniki. I am asking for help from you in order to find my family and bury them in a way that is fit for every human being.
I have learned that last June there was a burial ceremony for our villagers Hasan Rahmi and Ayshe Rahmi and their five children Mustafa, Sherife, Zahide, Hasan and Ahmet who had been killed in Livera in 1963 by some Greek Cypriots. I want to express my deep sadness for these murders.
I am begging you and the only thing I want from you is to share information if you know of the burial site of my parents and my brother to enable us to find their remains.`
Michalis Yiangou Savva had given me this brochure and I would publish it in YENIDUZEN on the 30th of July 2015 Thursday.
On the 2nd of August 2015 Sunday, as I sat down in front of the computer to write my article for POLITIS, I call a Turkish Cypriot friend for something else and one of my readers who is his brother in law is with him. He wants to speak to me.
`I have seen your article about the couple and the child from Vasilia in YENIDUZEN` he says… `And I remember something that perhaps might help you…`
`What is it?` I ask him.
`Well, right after 1974, I clearly remember hearing that a couple and their child had been buried in Vasilia` he says. He describes a place and I take note of this…
I don't know how to thank this reader – he has provided us an important clue to continue our search for the possible burial site of the `missing` relatives of Panayiotis… I will share this information with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and ask to go together to the possible burial site that my reader has told me about.
In Larnaka Panayiotis, Sevilay, Andreas Sizinos, Huseyin Rustem Akansoy and Dervish Ozer, all from our group `Together We Can` talk to youngsters about `missing persons` and all of them give the message of peace to the kids…
We will continue to inform the youth and we will continue our investigations – our path is clear since our hearts are clear: We don't want ever any of these youngsters asking our questions to go on the same path as us, searching for information for `missing persons` in our common future. If we sit down together, if we talk together, if we think together, if we share all our sadness and our happiness, all our worries and all our concerns, perhaps we can ensure a future for our youth where people will not simply `disappear` and no news from them for 40 or 50 years…
2.8.2015
Photo: Panayiotis Efsthatiou talking to youth…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 30th of August 2015, Sunday.
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