Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
He was barely a nine-month-old baby when his mother, Ayten Ibrahim gave him to some friends of hers to look after him for a few hours…
"Here is his milk" she would say…
"I have a few hours of stuff to be done in the southern part of Nicosia and I will be back soon…"
She would leave, this woman, the mother of Mehmet Karadal but she would never be able to come back…
The intercommunal conflicts that began at the end of December 1963 would take her away from Mehmet forever…
He would never know his mother, he would not even have a photo of her…
The friends with whom his mother left him for a few hours would adopt him and he would grow up with them…
"If I grew up with my own mother, I wouldn't have such a good childhood perhaps" he would tell me… "Because my (foster) father always treated me so well… Whatever I asked, he gave it to me…"
While growing up, he would slowly realize from the way his foster mother was speaking to the neighbours that she is not his own mother…
"They never told me anything, I just slowly made it out myself" he would say to me…
"Like when I would be naughty and my (foster) mother would get upset, I would sometimes hear her complaining to the neighbours about me… "You grow the children of others and see what he does to you?" she would say… But it would only hit me when I would try to get a Cypriot idea, that this was in fact true…"
Slowly he would find out why his mother had not been able returned.
She had taken a taxi to come back but the taxi driver, a Greek Cypriot from Limassol would stab her from seven spots on her body and then throw her heavily wounded body in the Turkish Cypriot neighbourhood of Limassol…
They would find her in the morning and take her to the hospital…
According to the rumours he heard, she would die there and then since no one would claim her body, she would be buried in the cemetery for the forlorn in Limassol… Where this cemetery is or whether it exists or what exactly happened to her, Mehmet Karadal does not know…
We have been investigating to try to find out any information about her but it is as though the earth has swallowed her without a trace and as a last resort, I would suggest to him to write the story and print it in YENIDUZEN and POLITIS newspapers, just in case someone might remember and help us to understand what actually happened to her and where she might have been buried…
Ayten Ibrahim from Lefka had left her house together with her sister and they had come to Nicosia to stay and work.
Their mother would refuse to have anything to do with her two daughters so one would leave for London and Ayten would stay in Nicosia…
When Ayten Ibrahim would disappear, no one would go and ask for any information about her from the police – at least no one from her immediate family…
Ayten Ibrahim would never be put on the official list of "Missing Persons" either so the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee would never be looking for information about her…
A doctor with whom I was cooperating around the issue of "missing persons" would tell me that the best person to speak to would be Mrs. Djemaliye Hodjaoghlou – she had been at the hospital in Limassol in 1963 and she would know…
I would call her and so would Mehmet Karadal…
But she would slowly be giving in to Alzheimer's disease – at first, she would tell me that she has a book where all the names of those who were taken to the hospital in Limassol had been written, all those who died and all such information but that book is in her basement and that she needs to go and look it up and she would ask me and also Mehmet to call her later on…
I would speak to her daughter later and she would tell me that her mother is not well, she does not remember things…
Mehmet Karadal would speak to Mrs. Djemaliye, asking for help and she would say to him that she needs to fetch the book from her basement…
That she remembers vaguely that someone was brought in like the way described – stabbed from seven places – and who died and buried in the cemetery for the forlorn but she would say that she is not so sure of the name or whether it is the same person they are talking about…
Things would remain as they are – without moving forward…
When Mehmet Karadal would apply for a Cypriot identity card, he would not be able to get it in the beginning. The officials at the ID department would ask him about his mother…
"But I don't know!" he would say… "I was a baby when she disappeared…"
A friend of his would take him to a Greek Cypriot public prosecutor and he would instruct the ID department to open their books and look for information about the "missing" mother of Mehmet Karadal… They would do that and that's how Mehmet would find out a few more details of his mother and would fully realize that in fact it is true, that he had been adopted. He would realize that when he would go to get a Turkish Cypriot ID at the age of 18 – the name of his mother on his ID would be Ayten Ibrahim, different from the name of the foster mother… That is when he would realize that she is not his real mother but foster mother…
A neighbour called Havva would help him to get in touch with his grandmother… In fact, he had been seeing her in the street and saying hello without realizing that she was his grandmother.
At first the grandmother would refuse to see him…
But later on, she would soften up and cry about the whole thing and they would start visiting each other in Nicosia…
He would find a cousin who had come to settle from London and would meet her… Through her, he would find out a few more details about his aunt living in London, the one who had gone away…
A friend of his from London would tell him that he can send him a photo of his mother…
This would be the first time he would set eyes on his "missing mother" – through a photograph sent from London…
He would frame it and hang it on his wall…
His foster parents, his grandmother have all died – but he would have the photo of his mother hanging on his wall in his house. Whoever would see the photo would tell him that he looks like his mother…
"How can the records of those who died in the hospital and where they were buried be in the house of a nurse and not with the Turkish Cypriot health authorities?" he would tell me… "How can these records be in the basement of the house of the old nurse? And she cannot help us because of her condition… Perhaps someone who reads these can help us find out more details about what happened to my mother…"
He is appealing to anyone who would know anything about the fate of his "missing" mother, not even on the official list of "missing persons" of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…
If you know anything, heard anything please call me with or without your name – my phone number is 99 966518.
Do it as a humanitarian gesture to a fellow human being sharing this island with you who wants to find out the fate of his "missing" mother…
We will appreciate it…
25.12.2016
Photo: Mehmet Karadal with his mother's photo...
(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 22nd of January 2017, Sunday.
(**) Article in Turkish published in YENİDÜZEN newspaper:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/kayip-bir-annenin-izinde-9945yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/kayip-bir-annenin-izinde-2-9951yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/kayip-bir-annenin-izinde-3-9954yy.htm
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