Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
The process of return of the 10 Greek "missing persons" to their relatives whose remains had been found with the help of one of my readers have begun after the DNA identification by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee. There are two or three more unidentified persons whose remains were found in the same location but these could not be identified through DNA testing. Some Greek relatives had come to Cyprus in the 90s and had taken some remains thinking that they are the remains of their loved ones – years later it would turn out that these remains were not their loved ones but belonged to other "missing" persons so they would have to return them… But we heard that some Greek families would be unwilling to do that… Could these unidentified remains belong to them? Perhaps yes, perhaps no if what we heard is true – that some do not want to return some remains they took from Cyprus…
I hope that the other remains – no matter who they belong to - will be identified in the future so they can be returned to their families…
The whole process of showing and digging and identifying these remains took exactly ten years… Because it was back in 2007 – that is ten years ago – when my reader had given me some remains that he had taken as a child from the location of this burial… We had given these remains to the Turkish Cypriot Office of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee… I would ask my reader to show me where he took these remains from and he would show me and the officials of the CMP several times, this burial site. He had also shared with me and I had published photos that he had taken from there when he had found this location right after 1974…
We would visit this place several times over the years with the officials of the CMP and each time we would visit, they would find more human remains… Once we had gone together with Xenophon Kallis, Okan Oktay and the late Ughur Umar from the CMP and they had found a piece of the skull and other small bones… Ughur Umar has passed away a few months ago so may he rest in peace now…
We have found out that the 10 "missing persons" identified with DNA testing were serving in ELDIK… According to the Greek Cypriot media, there will be a ceremony for them on the 23rd of May 2017 in Nicosia. We have found the photographs of eight of these 10 Greek "missing persons" and could not find photos of two of them… I published these photos in our newspaper YENIDUZEN so our readers could see who they were… I also call my reader who had helped us to find their remains and thank him from my heart… Three more "missing" Greeks have also been identified – they had been found accidentally when there was digging for water pipes in a military zone and their remains too will be returned to their families in Crete, Corfou and Thessalonica…
We share the pain of the Greek relatives…
The names of the 10 Greek "missing persons" whose remains we helped to find and who have been identified are:
*** Ioannis Charilaos Costantakopoulos
*** Georghios Dhemosthenis Hamouriotakis
*** Charalambos Petros Karagounis
*** Athanasios Vassilios Karayiorgos
*** Constantinos Demetrios Mpordymas
*** Vassilios Antonios Trianti
*** Argyrios Georghios Sini
*** Ioannis Charilaos Papadopoulos
*** Demetrios Epaminondas Velonas
*** Georghios Demetrios Zervomanolis
WHAT HAD WE WRITTEN ABOUT THIS SITE
On the 18th of December 2016 in POLITIS with the heading "More good news: Our reader helped to find the 10 `missing` from Greece from ELDIK…" we had written, in summary the following article:
"…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…
…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)"
Photo: Photos of 8 "missing" Greeks identified that we published in Yeniduzen…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 21st of May 2017, Sunday.
(**) Link to the article in Turkish published in the YENİDÜZEN newspaper on the 9th of May 2017:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/yunan-kayiplarin-gomu-yerini-gosteren-okurumuza-sonsuz-tesekkurler-10647yy.htm
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