Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
It took a total of nine years to follow this and finally there is news that the mass grave that one of our Turkish Cypriot readers had discovered as a child and had shown it to us for the first time in 2007 has results… Remains of the 10 out of the 12 `missing persons` found there have been identified: They were soldiers from ELDIK – The Greek Contingent in Cyprus and the return of their remains to their relatives has begun…
Our reader had come across this mass burial site around Geunyeli-Kermia area had first shown us this place on the 12th of August 2007 and gave us some bones he had taken from there as a child as `memorabilia`– that is exactly nine years ago. On the 13th of August 2007 we had given these human bones to the officials of the Turkish Cypriot Members' Office of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and the officials had confirmed that these bones belonged to three different human beings. On 13 and 14 August 2007 we had published in YENIDUZEN both the photos of these remains, how we gave them to the CMP and a Google map of where the mass grave was.
We had shown this mass grave to the officials of the CMP in 2007. Three years would pass by and we would show the burial site again two or three times in 2010. On 26th of May 2010 and the following weeks we would go with my reader to show to CMP officials this burial site. Each time we would go there with officials of CMP, they would discover new human remains... Among those remains were pieces of human skull…
Two more years would go by and the officials of CMP would ask us again to show this burial site. We would go again with my reader on the 28th of August 2012 to show the site to the officials of CMP. This time again, more human bones would be found.
Finally, after a whole five years from the first time we had shown this site to the officials of the CMP, intensive digging would begin in September 2012. The digging would continue into 2013 and remains of 12 `missing persons` would be found in the area that our reader had shown to them multiple times…
Now we find out from the Greek Cypriot media that remains of the 10 of those `missing` persons out of 12 have been identified and that their journey back to their families has begun… We learn that the remains belong to 10 missing persons from ELDIK…
Our Turkish Cypriot reader has ensured that the remains of `missing persons` from Greece has been found. I am very thankful for his humanity and for his insistence… What he saw as a child did not remain there – what he took as memorabilia, he gave back, he showed us the place and now they have turned into human beings to be returned to their loved ones. We learn that Nestoras Nestoros the Greek Cypriot Member of CMP has gone to Greece to notify the families of six and he will go again in January to notify the other four…
There are no proper words to thank this reader of mine… I thank him with my whole heart whose insistence and help resulted in the finding of 12 `missing persons` - among them 10 from ELDIK.
I thank the CMP for digging the area we showed to them in 2007, 2010 and 2012 multiple times and for carrying out the DNA tests for identification…
I share the pain of the relatives from Greece – may their loved ones rest in peace now…
Back in August 2007 in POLITIS here is what I had written:
`A mass grave that a child discovers…
He was just a kid when he discovered a mass grave…
He was barely 15-16… His uncle had a flock and sometimes he would tag along with him and go to the fields and while his uncle grazed his sheep, he would walk around and look around and see things…
Exactly 17 years ago, he had discovered a mass grave at a place they had gone together with his uncle…
The bones were spread around… This was a riverbed between Geunyeli-Kermia (Ayios Dometios) and Yerolakko. A bit further were some fortifications… Way back was the place where there was the Greek Army Camp where once upon a time, there had been heavy fighting. He had taken two big femurs as a memory from here and had kept them for 17 years…
Reading my series `Cyprus: The Untold Stories` years later, the child of those days and the young man of today, had stopped me in the streets talking about those bones he had taken…
`I had taken them as a souvenir` he told me… `But since now there is digging and bones are identified through DNA tests, I want to give back these bones…`
`This would be very good` I had told him…
`These bones were humans once… They must have had families… Maybe a mother or a wife and loved ones are still looking for them, still waiting for them… At least, this way, they would find out, what had happened to them…`
Last weekend we meet. We go together to the place of the mass grave that he had found.
`There were lots of bones here, they were on the surface…` he tells me…
Most probably, because of rains, the riverbed must have been eroded and the bones came out… Perhaps if they started digging this riverbed, more bones would come out.
This is an empty field between Geunyeli and Kermia (Ayios Dometios crossing point). I take photos of the dry riverbed where he had found bones. A bit further, a shepherd is grazing his goats…
As you climb up towards the north from the riverbed, you can see the remains of fortifications. There were fortifications here until 17 years ago… These fortifications must have been those of Greek Cypriot soldiers – they faced Geunyeli, towards the north. At that time there was no `New Town Geunyeli`, no villas or houses around…
Towards the south, I can see a bunch of trees and the Ayios Dometios checkpoint… Towards the west of Kermia, there was the old International Airport. Inside these trees – a small forest – there were the artillery fortifications of the Greek Cypriot army.
Months ago, another reader had told me that there was a big mass grave here and I had published what he had said back in April 2007 in Yeniduzen. He had said:
`There is a big mass grave between Yerolakko and the Nicosia International Airport. Here were the Greek Army, Greek Cypriot Army and the Cobra Commando Camp of the Greek Cypriots. We had even heard about the fighting there from the radio. The Greek Cypriots had fortifications with hydraulic systems. The fighting was so heavy that the Turkish soldiers at that point had made an attack with their bayonets and had captured the whole area…` I had done research back in April finding out that the commander of the Greek contingent had left, leaving even his formal uniforms he would wear during ceremonies and his swords and that both sides had heavy losses at this point. The bodies of around 80 Greek officers had been returned to Greece but it was not known where Greek Cypriot soldiers were buried…
After five days from the end of the fighting, the ones who had died during fighting had been buried. Most probably, there was fighting around the fortifications where we were standing now and they had been buried here.
The child, who had discovered this mass grave later, shows me photos taken at the riverbed and at the fortifications… And gives me back the bones to bring to the Cyprus Missing Persons Committee… Two big femurs (leg bones) and some other small bones… These femurs could belong to two different persons. One of the bones had a bullet inside…
Bones, from a mass grave that a child had found… Bones that we wrap in newspapers and put in a nylon bag… Bones that I would give to the Cyprus Missing Persons Committee for DNA tests to start a process to give them back to their families…
The war has taken them away, just as it has taken away hundreds of others… What remains behind is the site of a mass grave, a few photos and the pain the families still go through…
The child who had discovered the mass grave has done an unbelievable act – he tries to help two humans who had been killed on this spot to go back to their families even in this condition in order to lessen their pain…
The child of those days who had discovered the mass grave, the young man of today diffuses the `secret` from being a secret and is sharing this with all of us…`
(August 2007)
13.12.2016
Photo: Our reader had found the mass grave when he was a child…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 18th of December 2016, Sunday.
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