Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
The remains of Omer Hasan Depreli who was a civilian and who had been taken from his house in Kaymakli and was "missing" since the 26th of December 1963 has been found during the exhumations at the Tekke Gardens cemetery… Exactly after 54 years from the day he "disappeared", he will be buried on the exact day of his disappearance, that is 26th of December 2017.
The "missing" Omer Hasan Depreli, his family and other Turkish Cypriots from Kuchuk Kaymakli (Omorphita) had fled their homes from Omorphita on the 25th of December 1963 due to some fighting with Greek Cypriots… They had gone to the nearby Hamit Mandrez village seeking refuge… On the next day, that is on the 26th of December 1963, Omer Hasan Depreli would go together with Huseyin Vretchali, Mehmet Ahmet Kochino, Kemal Ahmet Kochino and Hasan Hakki to Omorphita – some to feed their animals and Omer to pick up some stuff from his house…
At his house, Omer would prepare a bag for his kids and family… In a bag he would put some sugar, some rice, some macaroni and an overall of red velvet for his 5 year old daughter Zehra…
But this bag would remain on a chair next to the table in the kitchen… He would be taken from his house by some Greek Cypriots, killed and would go "missing"…
After the 15th of January 1964, his family would be able to go for a quick visit to their home in Omorphita in order to pick a few things they needed, and they would find this bag in the kitchen… The car keys would be found 50 meters away from the house next to some reed… Probably while Omer was taken by force by some Greek Cypriots, he wanted to leave behind some sort of clue for his family, throwing his car keys there…
The family would never be able to go back and live again in this house – they would take a few pieces of furniture but the kids would have to live as orphan kids as refugees...
Omer Hasan Depreli was from Sinda and had married with Dervishe from the same village and they had five kids… His daughter Sozay was 17 years old, his son Izzet was 12, Huseyin was 10, Halil was 8 and his youngest daughter Zehra was 5.
Dervishe Hanim was pregnant with their sixth kid – this baby girl would be born after her husband disappeared and they would call this little girl Emine – but unfortunately Emine would have an accident and would burn and then die after a little while when she was two…
And Dervishe Hanim would die on the 29th of March 2003, without being able to see that the remains of her husband had been found in the Tekke Gardens' cemetery…
Together with the four other Turkish Cypriots, Omer Hasan Depreli had been taken from Omorphita and they had all been killed in cold blood. These were ordinary civilians – not soldiers – who had gone to feed their sheep and goats or pick up a few things for their families who had become refugees… They were murdered in cold blood by some Greek Cypriots who had gone searching for Turkish Cypriots to kill in Omorphita… You can predict who they might have been… We see this pattern in a part of the population of both main communities – the cowards, the opportunists, the killers who have killed innocent civilians both in 1963-64 and in 1974… Why? Because they had the "opportunity"… Why? Because they had "protection"… Why? Because they could get away with it…
The bodies of those killed like this would be collected from the area of Nicosia and would be put in the morgue in the Nicosia General Hospital. Then, the Greek Cypriot authorities would try to compile a list of around 21 or 22 Turkish Cypriots in the morgue, trying to define their identities and for some they would and for some they would write "unknown Turkish Cypriot from Omorphita". They would send this list to the Turkish Cypriot authorities through the Red Cross probably around the 27th of December 1963 and would ask them to come and pick up the dead bodies of these Turkish Cypriots from the morgue. But the Turkish Cypriot authorities would not go or could not go to pick them up… The Greek Cypriot authorities would wait for some days and then probably around the 4th of January 1964, they would take these bodies outside the Agios Vassilios Turkish Cypriot cemetery, open some big cavities and bury them in mass graves… After this, the Turkish Cypriot authorities, accompanied by British soldiers and the Red Cross would go there and open these mass graves on the 13th of January 1964 – a team headed by Dr. Husrev Daghseven would take out the bodies of these "missing" Turkish Cypriots and they would be sent to the Red Crescent Hospital in Nicosia for autopsies.
Despite the fact that the Turkish Cypriot authorities had a list sent by the Greek Cypriot authorities and despite the fact that the doctor, Husrev Daghseven, would recognize some of those from that particular list while taking the bodies out of the mass graves, the Turkish Cypriot authorities would not try to identify them and they would bury them all in the Tekke Gardens' cemetery as "martyrs of Ayvasil…" without even notifying the relatives of these "missing persons".
I would publish that list sent by the Greek Cypriot authorities to the Turkish Cypriot authorities exactly ten years ago back in 2007 in the YENIDUZEN newspaper on my pages called "Cyprus: The Untold Stories" and I would also interview the doctor, Mr. Husrev Daghseven about how he had exhumed the mass graves in Ayios Vassilios… In this way, for the first time the relatives of those "missing persons" from the list and our community would find out that there were some "missing" Turkish Cypriots buried in the Tekke Gardens' cemetery…
Some of the relatives of these "missing persons" would take this list after we published it and would go and visit some Turkish Cypriot authorities to demand an explanation, but they would be told, "There is no such thing! This is a game of the Greek Cypriots!", continuing to deny the truth…
It would take us ten years of struggle and push by some relatives of "missing persons" in order for the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to be able to dig the graves marked as "Ayvasil" or "unknown" in the Tekke Gardens' cemetery and they would find remains of 35 persons… Now we are in a process of DNA testing to see how many of them are "missing persons" and already we have had seven funerals of these "missing persons" – the funeral of Omer Hasan Depreli would be the eighth funeral…
His children Halil, Dr. Huseyin, Izzet, Sozay and Zehra will be burying the remains of their "missing" father on the 54th anniversary of his "disappearance", that is the 26th of December 2017…
The "missing" Omer Hasan Depreli will return to his children in a small coffin – isn't so much tragedy too much for his family?
Let alone the fact that he had been kidnapped and killed by some Greek Cypriots, his five kids had become orphans, his wife and kids had become refugees and waited throughout their lives for his return and not only this but our "own side" would hide his grave from his relatives even though they knew where he had been buried… And they would continue to hide it for decades, adding pain to injury for his relatives…
One of the sons of Omer Hasan Depreli, Dr. Huseyin Depreli says that "My clinic for over ten years was overlooking the Tekke Gardens' Cemetery… I did not know that my father had been buried there… And every day I would be looking at this cemetery from my clinic…"
He is heartbroken, and this cruelty is part of this big tragedy, this big scandal… The child of a "missing person" would go to his clinic every single day, would not know where his father was buried, his father would be on the official "Missing Persons' List" and many decades later, he would realize that he had been looking at the grave of his father without knowing it…
The grave of Omer Hasan Depreli and the other "missing persons" in the cemetery of the Tekke Gardens would only be exhumed after lots of struggle… Why? If their own children were buried here in unmarked graves, would the Turkish Cypriot authorities act like that? Maybe they used the pain of the "missing persons" and the "martyrs" for their own interest but what remains is only pain in the hearts of the people… No matter how hard they tried to cover-up and hide the truth, now in the end, the truth is out with all its nakedness. And all those who shouted at us that these graves should not open are one by one dying now… Now, their names are mentioned with the cruelty that they had been involved in against the relatives of "missing persons"… If they could hear what is said about them now, they would turn in their graves…
Omer Hasan Depreli was born in 1918 in Sinda. He was a chauffeur… During the Second World War between 1940-45 he was a soldier in the British army and had gone all the way to Egypt and Malta, driving heavy vehicles… During the years 1955 he had worked as an auxiliary policeman. After that he would work as a chauffeur. He did not have a bus or a truck of his own but would work for "Deveci Hasan" ("Hasan the Camel Owner") in the "Deveciler Khani" ("Khani of Camel Owners") in Nicosia, collecting wool from all over the island… He would collect the wool from the sheep from all over the island… He was the first person from Sinda to have a driving license… He was a civilian trying to help his family survive on this land…
I will go to his funeral to share the pain of his relatives and to lay some flowers on his small coffin… May he rest in peace now…
25.11.2017
Photo: Ömer Hasan Depreli…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 10th of December 2017, Sunday. An extended version of this article has been published in the YENİDÜZEN newspaper in Turkish on the 25th of November 2017 and the link is:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/54-yil-sonra-gelen-cenaze-11574yy.htm
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