Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
Mukaddes Mazhar was married to Bektash Cangil in the mixed village of Timi-Paphos… They had four kids: Six-year-old Abdullah, four-year-old Nadire, three year old Dudu and the baby girl Shakire who was only six months old…
When war began on the 20th of July 1974, her husband Bektash decided "not to surrender their guns" and in a group of five friends and relatives they would leave the village. But before he left, Bektash Cangil would take off his military clothes – he was serving as a Turkish Cypriot soldier – and would hide these clothes in the pile of barley in his father in law's house…
Some Greek Cypriot soldiers were looking for him: They would come to the house and would search the pile of barley but could not manage to find the military clothes there…
The father in law of Bektash, that is the father of Mukaddes would get worried… Mr. Mazhar would tell her daughter to take those military clothes and throw them in the well…
The date was 22nd of July 1974.
Mukaddes would take the military clothes from the pile of barley where they were hidden and first would try to throw it down the toilet well in the yard. But as we remember those toilets of old times, the mouth of the toilet well was narrow and when she realized that these clothes would not go down there, she would remember that there was a water well in the yard of the last house of the village… So she would start walking there, holding the military clothes in her hands…
Her kids, the 6-year-old son Abdullah and her 4 year old daughter Nadire would follow her… Because Nadire was crying, she would take her with her but would send Abdullah home…
She would go and find the well in the yard of the last house and would try to throw the clothes in this well but some Turkish Cypriots there would stop her and tell her she can't do that since they might need to use the well to drink water… So they would not allow her to throw those military clothes in the well…
What should she do? She would go on the dirt track going towards outside the village, with her daughter walking next to her… Probably she was planning to throw these clothes somewhere at the edge of the village but she would never have a chance to do that…
Some Greek Cypriot soldiers stationed on this road would start shooting at her as soon as they would see her… Mukaddes would try to protect her little daughter from this shooting, embracing her with her body… But her daughter's hand would stay outside her body and little Nadire would be shot from her wrist… Even today you can see that the bullet has chipped off part of her wrist… While trying to protect her four-year-old daughter Nadire, the 26-year-old young mother Mukaddes would be shot and killed…
She would leave behind four small kids: 6-year-old Abdullah, 4-year-old Nadire, 3-year-old Dudu and six months' old Shakire whose name would be changed to Mukaddes after the killing of her mother… She would carry the name of her mother…
Nadire and her mother would be taken to the hospital and Nadire would stay there for about three weeks for treatment…
Mukaddes Mazhar would be buried in the Turkish Cypriot cemetery of Timi in a big haste… According to the information that her children have gathered, the grave was at the entrance of the cemetery… But those who buried and those who witnessed this burial are long gone and there is no one alive who might know the exact location of this grave… Perhaps except one person, a Greek Cypriot soldier who had been present at the burial – that is if he is alive or that is if this information is true… Or the UNFICYP might have information perhaps, if they were there on those days…
Since the name of Mukaddes Mazhar is not on the official "List of Missing Persons", the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee cannot help in her case… Therefore, together with Nadire Velettin and her husband Raif and Abdullah Cangil, we would go to visit Mr. Photis Photiou, the Commissar of Humanitarian Affairs of the Republic of Cyprus and ask for his help in locating the grave… We would visit him on the 25th of August 2017 and together with us I would also invite Hasan Guneshlier and his brother Ali to come to give DNA for their great uncle Chakir Ali who had been killed while in Athalassa Mental Hospital during the bombing of the Turkish war planes on the 20th of July 1974…
Mr. Photiou would welcome us and would tell us that he would start the investigation for Mukaddes Mazhar's grave and would also welcome the DNA samples from the relatives of Chakir Ali since he would inform us that soon there would be digging in the yard of the Athalassa Mental Hospital where in a bomb crater 31 persons – among them three Turkish Cypriots, one of them Chakir Ali – had been buried.
Next we would sit with an official from his office so that the relatives of Chakir Ali would draw a family tree and would give DNA samples. Nadire and Abdullah would do the same, for their mother… They would start drawing the family tree and only then I would realize what sort of tragedy they must have gone through… And that day becomes a very strange day for me…
When Nadire Velettin had contacted me through a cousin from London, I had no idea about the story of Mukaddes Mazar and her kids…
When we had gone to the office of Mr. Photiou, I hadn't fully grasped what sort of tragedy they had gone through…
Only when they started drawing their family tree, I would learn that after the death of their mother, the children were all thrown somewhere else and my blood would freeze... Two of the kids, the four-year-old Nadire and six months' old Mukaddes would be given to an uncle in London as adopted kids in 1975. The three-year-old Dudu would be raised by her grandmother. And the six-year-old Abdulah would stay with his father… Four years later his father would get married and Abdullah would have a step mother…
It was as though a bomb had exploded in the centre of the family and the four kids would be dispersed all over the place…
But the good thing is that they have managed to maintain their bonds despite this double tragedy – both losing their mother and being separated afterwards from each other – and they embrace each other with love and strong connections...
After we finish everything we have to do in the office of Mr. Photiou, we go back and at the Home for Cooperation we sit down and talk…
These kids have lived through the biggest of the tragedies and now they are looking for the "missing" grave of their mother…
"A bomb falls let's say and three persons die or five persons have been killed together, that is the end, they had died, finished… They were killed as a family, that's the end of it… But our tragedy starts after the death of our mother… The change in the flow of our life starts with that… We changed country, we changed mother and father, we had new mothers, new fathers, our lives became difficult… But we were kids back then… Only when we started growing up, we started realizing all of this…"
Both Abdullah and Nadire are teachers – perhaps this is a reflection of the tragedy they went through: Despite their own tragedy, they extend their love and care to other children, their students…
Abdullah says that they rarely had any chance to talk about what had happened to them – for many years Nadire and Mukaddes would come from London to Cyprus for holidays with their uncle, now their new father and his wife, their aunt, now their mother… But only about ten years ago, after growing up they would sit one day and try to put together what they knew about what had happened to them…
When the checkpoints opened back in 2003, Abdullah would visit Timi and try to see if he could find his mother's grave but he would not be able to enter the cemetery due to its bad condition at that time – an overgrowth of bushes and trees…
Nadire would visit Timi back in 2011 but she would not recognize much from her childhood since a lot of houses have been demolished…
Abdullah Cangil is the headmaster of an elementary school now…
"No child should live through the tragedy we have gone through" he says… "And perhaps that's why I chose teaching… More children, more humans…"
I want to call on my readers for help: If anyone knows anything about what had happened on the 22nd of July 1974 in Timi-Paphos, about Mukaddes Mazhar, about her burial, please call me with or without your name on my CYTA mobile at 99 966518…
Let us help the children of Mukaddes Mazhar in their search for her "missing" grave…
9.9.2017
Photo: Nadire and Abdullah looking for the grave of their mother…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 1st of October 2017, Sunday. An extended version of my interview with Nadire Velettin and Abdullah Cangil was published in Turkish in the YENİDÜZEN newspaper on the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th of September 2017 and the links to these articles are:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/mezari-kayip-bir-annenin-izinde-11192yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/mezari-kayip-bir-annenin-izinde-2-11197yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/mezari-kayip-bir-annenin-izinde-3-11201yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/mezari-kayip-bir-annenin-izinde-4-11208yy.htm
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