Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
It all started with our dear friend Katerina Antona creating a Facebook page on `missing persons` - both from 1963 and 1974 – both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots… Katerina's young brother Christakis Antona was `missing` from 1974 and his remains were found, together with other `missing` Greek Cypriots at a well in Agia Kepir…
Although Katerina found the remains of her brother, she did not stop searching for information for other `missing persons`… She is one of the unrecognized heroes of this land – she takes that extra step to make life more bearable for others… She goes further than others in order to ensure a better future for all of our children… That is why she created a page on Facebook for `missing persons` - this she does from the heart, as an ordinary citizen of this land, as a humanitarian task… She does not receive `funding` or `project money` to do this – she does this totally voluntarily, as a humanitarian gesture… How many people do you know who do things like that nowadays around you?
So on Katerina`s Facebook page on `missing persons` of 1963 and 1974, we would all try to contribute with information and articles and news and I would get to know the story of a young `missing` Greek Cypriot from 1964 Kypros Kyprianou, through this page of Katerina on Facebook…
She would draw my attention to this particular `missing person` and I would ask her to get me in contact with the brother of the `missing` young boy, Andreas Kyprianou and finally we would agree on a day to meet with him to learn more…
Andreas Kyprianou was born on 1938 at Mousoullita village, a small Messaoria village… He would attend a commercial school which would become a lyceum and he would be living in Nicosia with his grandmother at Pallouriotissa. Every Saturday and Sunday he would be going back to his village to his family. He would graduate in 1954-55 and when he would learn that CYTA was looking for workers he would apply and get a job… He passed examinations and had a course for the installation of telephone exchanges. He would be trained and would do the wiring and checking and repairing of all the telephone exchanges all over Cyprus.
He began working in CYTA in 1956 – at that time CYTA was managed by the British and they were doing cable as well…
Andreas was one of five brothers… His father from Pyrga, Costas Kyprianou had been married to Agathi from Mousoulitta and that was where their home was… They had five children, all boys: Andreas, Panayiotis, Sotiris, Kypros and Kyriakos…
The last exchange they installed to Turkish Cypriots was in Kyrenia in 1962-63, Andreas remembers…
`We installed telephone exchanges at Lapithos, Agios Epichtitos, at Kythrea, at Lefkonico and Yialousa, at Rizokarpasso and Paphos… CYTA had a Toyota car and I would go with my team to build exchange cables, to wire them, to check and repair all the faults. Then we would give the exchange to the authorities there and go… I worked in Polis as well…`
His brother Kypros Kyprianou would go `missing` on the 3rd of February 1964…
Kypros had only been 18 years old and he had graduated from the lyceum in Famagusta and had come to Nicosia to find a job. Their grandmother had died by that time and Andreas who had been married to Latsia had a house there and sometimes his brother Kypros would come to stay for a few days and then take the bus to return to Mousoullita.
On the day Kypros went `missing`, he had come to the shop of their brother Panayiotis who had a souvenir shop at the end of the Ermou Street, near the old Olympiakos building. He had met a friend of his and got his brother's bicycle… The friend of Kypros, Theodoros was going to sit in the exams to become a policeman and asked Kypros to accompany him… The exam would be at the Paphos Gate in Nicosia. Theodoros went inside for the examination and had told Kypros to wait for him there since it won't take him so long…
Andreas thinks that maybe Kypros tried to pass from the Paphos Road where four Greek Cypriot policemen were caught by some Turkish Cypriot policemen that same day. They were caught at the Chappa Building near Paphos Gate and kept some time and some of them were tortured as I would find out years later… So it was the same day that there were troubles in this area that Kypros also went `missing`…
`My brother had told my mother that he intended to go to a doctor because he had some stomach pains` Andreas says… `But that day he didn't go to the hospital…`
When did they realize that Kypros had gone `missing`?
`He didn't come back to my brother's shop to bring back the bicycle… I went to the police next day and to the UN – I begged the UN soldiers to search for my brother… I showed the UN soldier my brother's photograph and also gave him the photo – nothing came out of this. Another time I went to the UN again and the UN soldier told me `I saw this young man in the garage of Pavlides… Maybe this was your brother…`
My father Costa was searching for my brother continuously… And he was trapped by some Greek Cypriots to get his money… One Greek Cypriot had told my father that he knew some Turkish Cypriots who would help him to find my brother Kypros Kyprianou… So on 11th of October 1965 my father started to go from Pallouriotissa to Tymbou on his bicycle to meet this guy and at the Zoppas crossroads, one truck coming hit my father and my father was wounded on the head and on his chest. That day I was passing by chance from there and someone stopped me and said, `Andreas your father is in hospital…`
I ran and he was alive – there were 5-6 doctors around him and they said there was no cure… Five minutes later my father died… He had had 500 Cypriot pounds with him…
My father was a very energetic person. He did not have a piece of land but he worked hard to have his children study… He was running everywhere when my brother had gone `missing`. After he died, the police told me he had 500 pounds in his pocket.
I went to find the Greek Cypriot who had trapped my father – I wanted to ask him `Why did you do this?` When he saw me, he ran away… He is dead now…
After my father died, a year later my mother Agathi also died from a heart attack… Of course you can understand our pain, our mother's pain…
My brother was a very nice person, very quiet. We are a family who never hate people, we like people… I had a friend working with me at CYTA. His name was Ahmet Cevdet. `Mastro` he said to me one day, `what will happen if there is a war and you see me in front of you?`
`I would shoot up, in the air` I said.
`I would do the same` he said… Unfortunately I couldn't find him. He used to work at CYTA, later he became a soldier in Nicosia.
From Gonyeli, there was another Turkish Cypriot working with us in CYTA, his name was Veli Mehmet. He was more `political` though – not like Ahmet Cevdet…
The day my brother went `missing` he was wearing grey trousers and a white shirt.
He disappeared with the bicycle – the bicycle was a coffee / red colour and it was a new bicycle - `Ranch`…`
These are the words of Andreas Kyprianou…
I sense that perhaps the bicycle is the most important clue for us to follow – perhaps with the help of my readers, we might find out what had actually happened to this young, innocent boy of 18 years old who had nothing to do with any `conflict` but was merely on his brother's bicycle – perhaps he took a wrong turn and he passed accidentally to the Turkish Cypriot side of Nicosia at a day where `conflict` was brewing…
One of my Turkish Cypriot readers from London, years ago, had called me about a young boy who had crossed by mistake with his bicycle and was caught and was taken to a house near Ledra Palace… This was the house of Dr. Mangoian who had died and his wife Haysmig was living downstairs and upstairs was a military post for some Turkish Cypriot soldiers. According to this reader of mine, this young boy was questioned in the garage of this house and killed there…
`They had even shared his clothes amongst them, those who had killed them` he would tell me…
This reader of mine was serving at that military post and that's why he had been a witness…
`They buried him in the garage` he would tell me.
I would show this possible burial site to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee but so far there has been no excavations there. The garage is no longer there… The house also had a basement and perhaps this needs to be explored, as well as the garden…
The owner of the house, Haysmig Mangoian would later be killed by a Turkish Cypriot in her house… The same Turkish Cypriot would kill another woman, a Turkish Cypriot, in the same street and finally would be imprisoned…
The Mangoian house would for many years be used by the military – years later they would give this house to journalists from Turkey to use as their association's offices and the downstairs and the garden at the back would be hired to different people to be used as a restaurant – but all of them would fail…
With the help of my readers we need to explore whether my reader from London was talking about the `missing` Kypros or someone else…
12.11.2015
Photo: Kypros Kyprianou...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 29th of November 2016, Sunday.
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