Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
On the 4th of October 2017, Wednesday morning we take one of my readers, who is a friend and a witness to go together to show us some possible burial sites in the Mesaoria… We go with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Xenophon Kallis and Murat Soysal to the outskirts of Aphania first, an area between Aphania and Tymbou…
We stop on the old asphalt road, higher up than the new road… We stop at a place before the old bridge of Aphania…
When we look towards the east, we can see the old bridge so we are towards Aphania…
Behind us is the `Arif Efendi Chiftlighi` - once upon a time the famous farm of Arif Efendi… I had written years ago about this farm and its story – now abandoned, it stands in the middle of Mesaoria, its only company, the `ghosts` of the past… The `ghosts` of the owners, long gone, the `ghosts` of those buried in 1974 in its wells – in 1974 it had been an abandoned farm from years ago and now I have goose bumps just looking at it… Where we stand now, we are not close to this farm… There, in the 1990s those wells were `emptied` and the remains of the `missing` Greek Cypriots buried in those wells were taken away to an unknown location… My readers had told me the details of how some `missing` Greek Cypriots from Assia and Aphania had been taken there and killed and thrown in these wells… When there was digging much later on by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, they would find few remains and not the main bones because they have been taken away… So all those `ghosts` are there, behind us now, wondering what we are doing here…
The bridge also stands lonely under the Mesaoria sun… Everything is a pale yellow now, ochre like the way Van Gogh likes…
So many of my readers had insistently told us about the Aphania bridge as well, the old bridge – that after the war in 1974, while passing by they had seen bodies of the Greek Cypriots killed there… They were insisting that some had been buried in the riverbed but when heavy rains came that winter, these bodies would come out of where they had been buried… I had at that time taken witnesses to the office of the Assistant of the Turkish Cypriot Member of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they would draw sketches showing where they had seen dead bodies on that road… This was more than 10 years ago… When there was digging under the bridge, they would find nothing… Perhaps this place too had been `cleared` and the remains relocated elsewhere… More `ghosts` around the bridge, wondering what we are doing there…
But my reader is not a `ghost` and he would remember things at the spot where he has taken us today…
`It was right after the war` he says `and we were passing from here with a bus…. We saw bodies bundled together like a hillock… The bodies were covered with soil but not so properly… Someone in the bus said, 'Vre! You can still see what they were wearing, see their clothes?` and we looked and saw… I think they must have been about four or five bodies but I wouldn't know the exact number…`
He would take us to show us roughly the spot where this hillock of bodies had been…
We would find a bundle of barbed wire next to it and the soil here is so soft, clearly it is different from the soil all around us…
We would investigate, look around, try to establish that this was in fact the exact place he saw the bodies… My reader would remember very clearly that it was before the bridge – the bridge is his mark… And some eucalyptus trees further down…
Has this place been `emptied` as well or are there some remains of some `missing persons` here? That is for the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to find out through investigations and excavations… But clearly, in my sixteen years of investigation, no one had told us anything about this particular place that our witness is showing now – it is the first time ever that I hear of this spot. Kallis remembers some information concerning the eucalyptus trees but not of this place… Neither does Murat Soysal…
Kallis finds a piece of a bone that looks like part of a human bone but this too needs to be checked by anthropologists to be certain whether it is part of a human or an animal bone…
When we are done in this place of `ghosts` of Mesaoria, we move to go to Tremetousia…
We pass through Agia Kepir where many Greek Cypriot soldiers went `missing` and then we move on to Melousha…
`All of these villages died` my reader says, `since the partition of the island… Youngsters left… Melousha does not even have a coffee shop…`
The division of the island has taken its toll on these borderline villages…
Between Melousha and Tremetousia my reader tells us to stop so we stop and get out of the car…
`It must have been the 18th of August 1974` he says, `when this road opened and from Melousha, I walked to see how my aunt was in Tremetousia…
This had been a pig farm and there was a well with `alagadi` - that is a well where you could draw water with a bucket…
There are two wells here, both of them open – one of them under the water tank, the other, further up… This one looks old, built with stones…
Kallis finds some stoneworks that he says was used to transfer water from one well to the other…
He also shows us a broken piece of a stone basin that had clearly been part of this well made of light coloured yellowish stones for watering the animals…
Some people have stolen the beautiful stones of this well and one of those stones stands next to the road, under the trees…
Inside the well which might be about 10 meters deep, we see baby pigeons and some eggs… Pigeons fly out of the well when they see us coming near…
`There was a big stench` my reader says… `And I went to look and I saw a body wrapped in a sheet inside the well… They had thrown this body inside the well but it did not quite fall to the bottom, it got caught up so I could see… I could not see whether there were other bodies in the well or not… But I remember the alagadi since it prevented me from seeing further and of course because of the bad stench, I left…`
The farm is still a farm but not a pig farm…
We leave to go back to Nicosia…
I thank my reader with all my heart for sharing what he knows with us and I thank the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee for coming with us so we could show these possible burial sites…
Back in Nicosia, I call our dear friend Xenis Challoumas from Tremetousia… He comes from a legendary family, a family who always helped Turkish Cypriots in the mixed village Tremetousia… Unfortunately the father and uncle of Xenis have been killed and are `missing` since 1974… Some Turkish Cypriots have killed them and we have been trying to locate where the remains might be… There were readers who came forward with information that they were seen on the road between Tremetousia and Troulli – now a military zone… There was some digging in this area but their remains have not been found yet… They were killed because of money and greed: Some Turkish Cypriots from that village wanted the money of the cooperative, the money that Challoumas had and killed them with greed… Despite the fact that the Challoumas never hurt any human being in their whole lives and on the contrary helped some Turkish Cypriots of their village who were in need…
I ask Xenis about the pig farm…
`But that pig farm belonged to my uncles` he says… `My uncle Diomides and Andreas Challoumas… They were also known as 'Pirillis'. Both of them had buses… While uncle Diomides would carry workers to the British bases with his bus, uncle Andreas would carry workers to Nicosia with his bus… I think they had built the farm around 1965… And yes, I remember the wells` he says… There was no one living on the farm – the whole family helped run the pig farm, one of the biggest in Larnaca and Nicosia area… Their pigs had good quality genetics so people would come from other places to buy these pigs…
He explains to me that both of his uncles are alive, one living in Limassol and the other in Athienou…
When Diomides and Andreas Challoumas had left the village in August 1974, it was the father and the other uncle of Xenis, Michael and Procopis Challoumas who had stayed behind who came to this farm to feed the animals…
`I want to meet your uncles` I tell Xenis so we plan to do that when next time I would go to Larnaca…
`And what happened to the pigs?` I ask Xenis.
`Some Turkish Cypriots of the area took them to Pergamos and sold them to some Greek Cypriots… When one of my uncles went there he told them `These are my pigs…` and the Turkish Cypriots selling them said to my uncle, `No, they are not yours. They are ours now…`
I feel sad with the way this country has been, the way some people has been, the way they acted and still some of them act…
Whenever they acquire some sort of `opportunity`, they would run to loot… Whether Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot, wouldn't matter – in looting they would be the same… Just in acts of humanity, some of them would be the same too, shining their light for the future, like my reader today who showed us these possible burial sites… Like so many readers who try to help… Like so many people against looting, against killing, against raping, against hatred… Whether humanity will be able to win on this land, it is a big question mark since those with a human heart are not as many as those who are greedy for power and money…
My mother would always say, `You can only eat one plateful of food, not two…`
And when we are buried, we are buried in a small grave, not in a palace…
And when we are gone, all material things acquired during our lifetime remain on earth, there is no way we can take anything with us…
Greed of all kinds have destroyed the fabric of our communities in every sense…
If only we could realize that our time on earth is temporary, not forever, that we will be gone and that is the only certain thing about life: Our own death at some point in time…
Instead of greed, if only we could embrace each other and share what we have, this would be such a beautiful world…
5.10.2017
Photo: Kallis and Murat Soysal investigating the barbed wire and the area...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 29th of October 2017, Sunday.
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