Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
Remains of three `missing` Turkish Cypriots found in the well in Paralimni that a Greek Cypriot reader had shown me and Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia back in March 2012 have been identified through DNA testing by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and remains of the two of these `missing` Turkish Cypriots have been returned to their families for burial…
When we show a possible burial site to be explored, to be investigated and if a decision is taken to be excavated by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, most of the time we do not know who has been buried there – that is in fact if there is a burial there…
Even when remains are found, we do not know who that person might be although we might have a `rough idea` about it…
So when the CMP identifies through DNA tests who they are and if I find out, I try to meet the families to see who the person we helped to find the remains had been… And I try to go to the funerals of those whom we had helped to find the remains…
Last week I was in Gouphes together with Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia and my heart comrade – my husband – to attend the funeral of Kemal Mehmet Emin who was one of those found in the well in Paralimni… We had shown this well to the officials of the CMP back in 2012 and exhumations took place three years later, in 2015… And on the 28th of July 2016, the remains of Kemal Mehmet Emin were given to his family to be buried…
Kemal Mehmet Emin had been a worker in NAAFI in Famagusta when some Greek Cypriots with guns came and kidnapped him on the 11th of May 1964 and he became a `missing person`. There were also others whom they took from NAAFI and they too all went `missing`… It was the day when the son of a Greek Cypriot police commander, together with a couple of Greek officers entered the walled city of Famagusta and they had shot them there… So as `retaliation` to this, many civilian Turkish Cypriots had gone `missing` on the same day and the following days… Kemal Mehmet Emin and his father in law Ahmet were two of those… Canbulat Ali from Melanagra and his father in law were also in that group taken from NAAFI…
Kemal Mehmet Emin was from Gouphes and was married to Ayshe Kemal from the same village… They had five kids – three boys and two girls…
In his funeral speech at the mosque of Gouphes, Hasan Demiroz says:
"First of all let me thank you all for being with us on this very difficult day for us.
Dear friends, 52 years ago when I was only two years old, my father had gone to work at NAAFI in Famagusta in order to gain his living for his children when he had been kidnapped by some EOKA gunmen with blood on their hands, he had been killed and thrown inside a well with two of his friends and they shared this fate in that dark and deep well for 52 years…
A 13-year-old Greek Cypriot had seen what had happened by coincidence and years later called the journalist and told her this and Sevgul went together with Christina who is helping voluntarily to find information about "missing persons" to see him and this Greek Cypriot showed them the place of this well.
That is how these "missing persons" have been found…
I salute these people with brave hearts from here who helped to find our "missing persons…" I thank Sevgul Uludag for her contribution to humanity…
My dear friends, I want to ask this question: What did you gain by killing these innocent persons? But this kind of mentality should not be happy… Us as his children were not raised and grown up with vengeance and hatred but with love for our country and love for humanity and we are proud of that…
I was so afraid of facing this day but here I am… I am thankful that I have gone through this…
Our father now has come back to his village… He has been salvaged from that dark and deep well and has gained back his freedom.
I believe now that my father is free.
His spirit will go over our village and become a light illuminating his village, the fields and the mountains…
His villagers, his relatives, his neighbours, his mother and father, his children and grandchildren and most important of all my late mother is waiting for him…"
After the mosque we walk a long way under the sun to reach the cemetery outside the village and here Kemal Mehmet Emin is buried next to his wife Ayshe who had passed away in 2006…
And about a week earlier than this funeral, another funeral had taken place in Famagusta and there, Canbulat Ali was buried… He too had been found in the same well we had shown to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee. His son Ali Canbulat told me, "We could not say the word "father" all these years and finally at his grave we could say "father"… I want to thank for your efforts in finding the remains of our father… I hope you continue so that other relatives of "missing persons" can reach the remains of their loved ones…During the funeral today we were touched… We thought about a lot of things… We thought about all those years we spent without a father… We thought of our father… When our father was taken out of that well, there were some things on him… These things found on him touched our hearts… Now at least he has a grave… I wish that no child would have to go through such a terrible thing, no father should go "missing", no one should suffer what we have suffered…"
Canbulat Ali whose remains were buried in Famagusta was actually from Melanagra… When in 1958 some Greek Cypriots had burned the houses of Turkish Cypriots in Melanagra they had to flee… There were around 10 Turkish Cypriot families in Melanagra and when their houses were burnt by some Greek Cypriots of the village, some went to Agios Andronikoudis, some to Galinoporni, some to Famagusta, some to London… Canbulat Ali had gone to Aysimeo… In the beginning when he tried to buy land from this village, they would not sell him anything… Finally, a kind hearted Turkish Cypriot sold him land just outside Aysimeo and he built a house for his family with his own hands… He had six kids: The youngest about six months' old and the oldest about 11 years old… Ali Canbulat who spoke to me had been the eldest kid. During the week Canbulat Ali would go to Famagusta where he had rented a room and stay with his father in law Hudaverdi Yusuf and go to work together in NAAFI with him. During the weekend he would come back to Aysimeo to his kids… Hudaverdi Yusuf too would be kidnapped the same day from NAAFI and he too would go "missing"… So Canbulat Ali's wife Havva would lose not only her husband but also her father… The remains of her father were found in another mass grave in Paralimni together with other "missing" Turkish Cypriots few years ago…
"After my father went "missing" my mother was given a wage and raise us with that money. But she also worked, she used to plant tobacco in the village… She used to plant wheat and barley… She used to work as an "irgati"… She did everything to raise us… Some of us could study up to a point… One of us had to leave university because there was no money… If my father had been alive, I am sure we would all be able to study in the best of conditions… My mother did what she could…"
I thank my Greek Cypriot reader from Paralimni for showing us the well – with his humanity three more families are reaching their loved ones… I thank Christina for helping from the heart in all these efforts… I thank the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee for deciding to dig the well we had shown…
May they rest in peace now…
31.7.2016
Photo: Kemal Mehmet Emin…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 21st of August 2016, Sunday.
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