Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
Is there a place where Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot `missing persons` are buried together?
Yes there is and it is actually a very tragic example of our past…
The only place where Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot "missing persons" have been buried together – as far as we know so far – is the mass grave in the yard of the Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital…
I had written about this ten years ago, back in 2007 but no one had shown any interest at all…
I had written about it again with more details back in 2010, that is seven years ago – again there was no interest.
No interest from the media, no interest from the officials on either side, no interest from the official Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee (perhaps because they consider them as "known dead" – a category that creates problems for digging for hundreds of people since they are not "registered officially" as "missing persons")…
The story was "discovered" when there was going to be some building works at the Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital recently and when officials disclosed that yes, there was a mass grave there and yes, there were 31 persons buried in that mass grave and oh, by the way, three of those 31 persons being Turkish Cypriots… So a common mass grave where Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots are thought to have been buried together…
Back in 1974 when the war began, some "clever" Greek Cypriot army officials had decided to put anti-aircraft guns on top of the Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital to shoot at the Turkish war planes… Hospital? With patients being treated there? Both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots? Apparently it was not an "issue" for them while making a decision to install anti-aircraft guns to shoot on top of the hospital…
And then the Turkish war planes would come and would "silence" those guns on top of the hospital. Hospital? Yes, the hospital for those with mental disorders… Apparently this was not an "issue" – for both sides in this matter, the "issue" was the war, not the human beings in the hospital…
And what happened? When bombs started falling off, the anti-aircraft guns shooting at the planes were "silenced"… But meanwhile, the hospital was hit and there, as far as we know, 31 patients died… Three of them Turkish Cypriots. There were also those wounded…
According to the information that we gathered, those patients killed in the bombing were buried in a crater that one of the bombs created.
Some patients who had been wounded and taken to the hospital to be treated had died and they were buried in the Pallouriotissa cemetery.
But those who died in the bombing had been buried in the yard of the hospital.
And then nothing happened.
Everyone forgot about it… Or let it go…
The mass grave was in the yard of the hospital but the hospital continues to operate until now. Is it an issue? No… Patients come and go, people come and go, it functions with a mass grave there…
Only one person cared: Xenophon Kallis would write letters to the relevant ministries to point out that there was a mass grave in the yard of the hospital and that it should be known so that nothing would be built on it…
Later on, ten years ago, when we learned about this mass grave, we wanted to do something about it…
As the Bi-communal Initiative of Relatives of Missing Persons and Victims of War, "Together We Can" we wanted to build a memorial monument there or at least put a plaque so that it would not disappear and would not be forgotten or would not be destroyed somehow…
We would visit the Commissar of Human Rights and Missing Persons, Katie Clerides back in 2013 to tell her about this…
We would visit the hospital various times during the International Women's Day to give flowers to the nurses working there organised in PEO – we would do this as a joint activity as DEV-IS and PEO for the World Women's Day, visiting each other's work places – and we would talk about this mass grave during those meetings…
A reader would send me photos from the book "Meres Orgis Kypros" by Charalambos Avdelopoullos and Andreas Koutas where there had been 555 photos from the war of 1974, among them the photos from the bombing of the Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital… I would publish these photos of the hospital from the book in Yeniduzen newspaper to try to get more information from my readers… They would respond with details about their "missing" relatives…
But other than this, the issue would remain "silent", seemingly everyone having "forgotten" about the mass grave in the yard of the hospital…
Then this year, as the hospital started having more and more problems, the need would arise for renovation and perhaps having new constructions… That's when this mass grave would be "re-discovered"…
As I would re-publish the story of the mass grave in the yard of the Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital, one of the relatives of those buried in the mass grave, a Turkish Cypriot reader, would send me the photo of his "missing" relative: Chakir Ali from Mathiatis… And he would also send me a note to say the following:
"Good evening Mrs. Sevgul,
The person you see in the photo I am sending you was at the Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital in 1974 and was killed as a result of the bombardment.
He is known among Mathiatis people as "Chakir Ali". This photo is the only photo we have of him… This person is buried there with the other Cypriots whose fate he shares…"
He would also give me his telephone number so I would call this reader so he could tell me more about Chakir Ali:
"He was a close relative. I remember him at the Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital… I was a small kid then, 10-11 years old" he says. And he continues to tell me what he remembers:
"Chakir Ali was from Mathiatis, he was married but they did not have children.
He had been at the Athalassa Hospital since 1954-55. After 1967, I remember visiting him at Athalassa with my grandmother and my great grandmother. He did not know himself, as I remember. All his brothers have died but there are the children of his step brother who are alive…
I believe Chakir Ali was born in 1913 or 1914. He was the youngest of the family. He came from a well-off family…
When we used to visit him at the Athalassa Hospital, I remember seeing Greek soldiers doing their walk in the yard of the hospital. I remember them as Greek soldiers… As a child I would get bored inside the hospital so I would go out into the yard and would watch these soldiers running or walking…
If necessary, I am ready to give a DNA sample for him. If they accept, the children of his step-brother can also give DNA samples.
Once upon a time I had spoken to someone called Anita who used to work for the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and I had asked her where he had been buried. She had told me that he was buried in the yard of the hospital. Anita had told me that the Turkish Cypriots who had died in the bombing were buried in the hospital yard but that the Greek Cypriots were buried in a cemetery.
But I saw what you wrote, that they have been buried together…
If necessary, I want to tell you that I can give a DNA sample for my relative…"
Back in 2010, another reader had called me about the identity of another Turkish Cypriot patient who had been killed in the bombing and who had been buried in the mass grave in the yard of the hospital.
She had said:
"Among those killed in the bombing of the Turkish war planes at the Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital was one of our relatives. The woman from Chatoz that you mention in one of your articles was our relative. Her name was Ismet Nusret Salih… She too had died in the bombardment…"
And another woman from Mari would call me to tell me that one of her co-villagers had been in the hospital…
"We used to call her Shifa and one of her children lives in Yerolakko, another one in Akathou and another one in Peristerona Pygi… She might have died in that bombing – you need to find her children" she would tell me.
Perhaps I should trace their relatives now that there might be digging in the yard of the hospital in order to help them give DNA samples…
May all those killed during the bombing rest in peace…
May we never see such days again in Cyprus…
30.3.2017
Photo: Chakir Ali…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 7th of May 2017, Sunday.
(**) Link to my articles published in YENİDÜZEN newspaper in Turkish on the 7th and 8th of March 2017:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/yeniden-kesfedilen-bir-toplu-mezar1-10338yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/yeniden-kesfedilen-bir-toplu-mezar2-10341yy.htm
Link to my article published in YENİDÜZEN newspaper in Turkish on 21st of March 2017:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/matyatli-cakir-alinin-elimizdeki-tek-fotograf-bu-10404yy.htm
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