Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
Good news comes from Mora again – some remains have been found in a field that we had shown the investigators of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee back in 2008 – that is exactly eight years ago and then we had shown the same field five years ago in 2011 to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee… One of my readers who have been helping us out in the area of Mora is happy… I call him to thank him and he says, `Yes of course I remember, almost ten years ago we had shown that field…`
More readers call and I am excited and happy – it is with their push and their kindness that makes me carry on…
This time a reader from the area of Morphou calls on Thursday the 10th of November 2016…
`You know` he says, `before I did anything I wanted to ask your opinion about what to do…`
`Tell me` I say to him.
`See, there is this Turkish soldier, he does not live here… He is here on holidays… And he told me of a possible mass grave where they buried around 25-30 persons but he does not want to be involved with the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…`
`Can he show you the site of the possible mass grave and then you can show us…`
`I will ask him… I will speak with him and then call you…`
`Where is this place by the way?`
`It's between Asomatos and Kondemenos…`
`There inside the military camp in Kondemenos, the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee carried out exhumations and found the remains of eight missing persons, six of them Greek Cypriots and two of them Maronites a few years ago… Might he be talking about that?`
`No, I don't think so… That is something else… This is something different…`
A few hours later my reader calls me…
`It's okay… He will show me and I will show you…`
I call Xenophon Kallis, the Assistant to the Greek Cypriot member of the CMP and Okan Oktay, the Coordinator of Exhumations of CMP… We can go to the area of Morphou the following day, that is on Friday the 11th of November 2016.
I call back my reader and we agree to meet the following day together with the officials of the CMP so he can show us the possible mass grave. The Turkish soldier has shown him the site and he has also other information to share with us from other sources…
So Friday we go to his village and pick him up and go to the area he is talking about…
Coming from Asomatos towards Kondemenos, as soon as we approach a little cliff, just as soon as we pass the cliff we stop…
And then I remember:
"But we had information from another reader about this place years ago… Around four years ago, I had written about this place… But when the exhumation inside the military camp at Kondemenos was done and they found the remains of eight missing persons, I had thought maybe my reader had confused the place… Now I see that he actually didn't…"
Kallis thinks the same way and so does Okan…
"We had a Maronite witness show this place" he says…
We realize that due to the mass grave the CMP exhumed inside the military camp at Kondemenos, we had all thought that the witnesses were talking about that and that they were confused…
In fact, they were never confused…
This is a completely different place and with my reader with us now who has details about what happened here, it has nothing to do with the bombing of the area by Turkish planes – this was a different group trying to retreat when they got into a fight and were killed and buried here…
My reader explains to us the information he gathered from the Turkish soldier, as well as from his own relatives…
"Here was a group of Greek Cypriot soldiers and when the Turkish army came down, they were caught… According to the Turkish soldier who is a witness from those days, when they found them, their upper bodies were naked – it means that they had taken off their shirts so as not to recognize their ranks if they were caught… Probably that was it…
So they were killed here and then buried to the right of the road… But not this new asphalt road, the old road…
So you see at the top where the cliff is, the old road merges with the new road…
According to the Turkish soldier, they were buried to the right side of the old road…"
We roam the area and look at where the old road is…
"One of my relatives used to go to work with a bus and on the bus there was this guy called K. who had been a guide to Turkish soldiers… Each time they travelled this road to go to work he would be saying "We are passing over the prisoners of war… They are laying under this road…" So you can try to find him – at that time back in 1974, he was barely 16 or 17 years old… He lives in Kambilli village and it would be easy for you to find him…"
Okan Oktay takes notes and promises to send someone to find him…
According to my reader, the Turkish soldier was part of the burial…
"He told me that they had buried them and he estimated a group of soldiers around 25 or 30… He told me that later they had found 3 or 4 persons killed during the war and had buried them here with the other group as well or next to the mass grave… But in total he was talking about around 25-30 persons…"
We take coordinates and photos – Kallis will look from old aerial photos at the old road… How it was and how it is now…
In the car as we are going back we are really mesmerized with this information…
So far we have four sources of information pointing to the same possible burial site: My reader here with us who learned this from the Turkish soldier, his relatives pointing out to what K. was saying to them as they were passing from here, my other reader who had informed me about this possible burial site four years ago and I had written about it… And the Maronite witness that showed Okan Oktay this area… All point to the same area with the same story: That there is a mass grave here… All these years, we had been thinking the same thing: That the mass grave they were talking about had been the one discovered inside the military camp at Kondemenos… But no, we all realize now with clarity that this is a new place… Perhaps these were the soldiers retreating from the area of Agios Ermolaos or somewhere from around there…
While going back my reader shows us another possible burial site in Kapouti…
One of his relatives who lives in Australia recently came to visit Cyprus and told him about this possible burial site.
"It was under a carob tree that my relative saw two or three persons buried" he says…
We stand outside a fenced field with trees – we cannot enter, it is private property, all fenced off.
But we can see some branches of the carob tree…
"My relative thinks that they might have been soldiers since their boots were visible… You need to search under the carob tree…" he says…
We take him home and head back to Nicosia…
I thank him with all my heart for his kindness and humanity…
14.11.2016
Photo: This area between Kondomenos and Asomato must be investigated…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 25th of December 2016, Sunday.
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