Sevgul Uludag
Caramel_cy@yahoo.com
99 966518
After a lapse of six years when one of my readers had given me and the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee information about a possible burial site in Kyrenia Boghazi, on the 5th of September 2016 Monday, he goes with them to actually show the possible burial site himself.
After six years, the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee manages to get him permission to enter the military zone in Kyrenia Boghazi to show the possible burial site and he goes on the 5th of September Monday morning together with the officials of CMP, Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay and finds the possible burial site.
As a journalist I am not allowed to go in any military zone but this is not so important since my readers can go and can show the possible burial sites that we have written about years ago…
So far our readers have shown possible burial sites in the same way in military zones at St. Hilarion, Voni military camp and in the Kyrenia Boghazi… In this way we make sure that these places are put on the list of places to be excavated by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…
Six years ago, on the 30th of May 2010, I had written about this possible burial site in Boghazi… This is what I had written six years ago:
"In search of mass graves in Boghazi and St. Hilarion...
`It took me four hours to come to myself, after I read what you had written about Boghazi` he says... `I read what one of your readers told you about a group of 14 Greek Cypriots buried in Kyrenia Boghazi and I felt goose bumps all over me... I had been thinking of calling you all these years but never did. But this time, I decided to call you because I have a similar experience there...So when I read what you wrote, I felt as though I was covering up murders so I decided to call and speak to you, so that I can get it off my chest after all these years` says one of my readers.
The weather is hot but glum, full of dust particles from Africa, creating a sort of a `mist`, making it difficult to breathe, hiding the shocking blue colour of our skies... We sit outside, at a once very famous cafe in Boghaz... We used to come here often in order to drink its famous `ayran` (yogurt drink) and eat fresh Cypriot sandwiches... The owner, Suleyman Onan, has grown old and so has his wife but they keep this place called `Yayla Bar` running, even though it is in desperate need of repair...
We sit outside, on plastic chairs that have seen better days while the old man, Suleyman, brings us Cypriot coffee and some katmer (Cypriot pastry made with cream called kaymak)... The smell of the `kaymak` fills our nostrils and we sip our coffee, talking...
Last week as I published the story of a Turkish Cypriot reader who spoke to me about a group of 14 Greek Cypriot soldiers brought to Boghazi and executed outside the military cemetery, it created a stir among my readers... According to this reader, they were buried three meters outside the walls of the military cemetery and he has given me directions as to the exact spot of the burial site. `I have been having nightmares about this group of 14 `missing persons` buried there, I know where they are buried and I wanted to show you very much where it is but I am afraid to do that... I want to speak to you and get it off my chest, maybe it will do some good to the relatives of those missing` he says... `After I read what you wrote about the killing of a group of eight Greek Cypriots at St. Hilarion, among them a baker, I could not keep this secret to myself any longer. I was very much affected by the story of the baker from Ayios Georgios who was killed in St. Hilarion... So I decided to call you and tell you my story...`
Reading what this reader said, another reader of mine would call and tell me his story:
`I called to tell you that what you wrote about the group of 14 Greek Cypriot `missing` persons buried in Boghazi is quite true` he would tell me and he would continue:
`I did my military service as a soldier in 1978-79 in Boghazi. Since I was quite new in this area, I did not memorize yet the monobadi (dirt track) I had to follow when I needed to be on duty. One night, it was raining very hard and I sort of lost my way and slipped on the steep hill and fell into a big hole, up to my waist... I got out of this hole in the dark and went to my military post that night... But in the morning as I spoke to the old man who used to take care of the cemetery in Boghaz about what happened to me the previous night, he told me `But my son, you fell into the whole where the Greek Cypriots have been buried!` The old man knew of this place and I can point out where this place is... The old man had told us how some Greek Cypriots were brought here in trucks, how they were buried. In 1974, he had taken part in those burials... As they were burying Turkish soldiers and Turkish Cypriots in the cemeter, who had been killed in the war, once they had even encountered a Greek Cypriot at the last moment, recognizing him from the cross around his neck... So they would separate the Greek Cypriots and bury them outside the cemetery he had told us... He might have mentioned us about some Greek soldiers as well but I am not quite sure...`
This is the reader sitting with me in Boghaz now, pointing out the place where he fell into a hole... We don't take photos since the place he is pointing out is a military zone – I have also asked Ugur Umar, the assistant to the Turkish Cypriot member of the Cyprus Missing Persons Committee, Xenophon Kallis, assistant to the Greek Cypriot member of the CMP and Okan Oktay, who coordinates the exhumation teams to come and meet him, so that they can see this probable burial site. Meanwhile I call my other reader who had spoken to me about the group of 14 Greek Cypriot soldiers and give the phone to the anthropologist Okan Oktay, to check whether my two readers are talking about the same place... After some conversation, Okan Oktay confirms that, yes, both of my readers are pointing out the same location as a probable burial site.
We say goodbye to my reader who has met us in Boghaz, thanking him for coming and pointing out the spot where there might be a probable mass grave. He leaves us but we continue to go to the St. Hilarion Castle, to meet another reader of mine, who has information about another burial site in the St. Hilarion area..."
So my reader has shown now the possible burial site in Kyrenia Boghazi but there has also been information from different readers that some other "missing" Greek Cypriots might be buried in the Boghazi military cemetery or around it… Or at the edge of it…
This information I had shared with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee eight years ago…
One of those "missing" Greek Cypriots buried in Boghazi was a child – readers would tell me about the person who had buried him… I would go and meet him and he would tell me that they had brought a child wrapped in a blanket who had died in the Dikomo make-shift sahara hospital in 1974 and he had buried him at the edge of the Boghazi Military Cemetery… He had marked this place with a tree in his mind but the tree was gone and the cemetery had changed dramatically… The Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee would do some digging there but would not find anything…
When the outer walls of the cemetery were being built, some people working there would in fact encounter the remains of a child…
Another Greek Cypriot "missing" person who might be buried in Boghazi military cemetery was a Greek Cypriot killed in the war in 1974 in or around Pileri… He would be buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery… I had published accounts of this burial many years ago…
I am very thankful to my readers who share what they know and who come to show possible burial sites… I also thank the officials of CMP for ensuring permissions for my readers to enter military zones to show possible burial sites…
Let us hope that the remains of more "missing" persons will be found in the Kyrenia Boghazi…
11.9.2016
Photo: This is the entrance of the military cemetery in Boghazi…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 2nd of October 2016, Sunday.
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