Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
In the yard of the Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital, exhumations have been continuing for some time and the remains of the patients, killed in the bombing of the Turkish war planes on the 20th of July 1974 are being found…
According to Mr. Photis Photiou, the Commissar for Humanitarian Issues, 31 patients had been buried in the mass grave and three of this group of 31 were Turkish Cypriots. His office is responsible for the exhumation of the mass grave in the yard of the hospital.
I had already written the story of Chakir Ali from Mathiatis who had been killed in the bombing and had taken his relatives to the office of Mr. Photiou to give DNA samples so that if and when the remains of their relative are found, he would not stay in a box in a cold laboratory but would be able to be returned to his family for a proper burial.
But who were the other two Turkish Cypriots killed in the bombing?
With the help of some of my wonderful readers, I find another family whose brother had been killed in the bombing…
The second patient who died in the bombing was Osman Mustafa from Avdimou… One of my readers whose mother in law is from Avdimou would investigate for me and would find his family and give me his sister's phone…
She would be very excited and touched and we would agree to meet with her and with two other sisters, so I would take them with my car to the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics to give DNA samples…
So, on the 27th of November 2017, Monday morning we meet at the Agios Domedios checkpoint and we go together with Ozay Sert, Fatma Haskasap and Zalihe Derelizade to the Genetics Institute… Mr. Kariolou, the head of the institute would meet us and take us up to a quiet conference room and first the three sisters of Osman Mustafa would help him to make a family tree…
Father's name: Mustafa
Mother's name: Meryem
Brothers and Sisters:
Nazife Akguchlu
Salih Soyuarap
Ahmet Soyuarap
Zalihe Derelizade
Fatma Haskasap
Ozay Ibramiye Sert
One more brother who had died at the age of 21:
Ibrahim Soyuarap…
Then Fatma, Zalihe and Ozay would give DNA samples… In the following days Fatma and Ozay would fly out to Australia to their brother Salih Soyuarap who lives there and Mr. Karioglou would teach them how to take a DNA sample from their brother and they would practice a bit to learn so that when coming back in one and a half months, they would bring back his sample as well… Mr. Kariolou would also answer with patience all our questions…
When we would be done at the institute, I would take them to the cafeteria of Alphamega to have coffee and cookies and some flaounes that Fatma Hanim made herself – she had also made the cheese that she had used in the flaounes. We would sit and talk as though we had been friends for many years and then I would interview Ozay Sert who would tell me the story of her family… We would have such a good feeling between us that we would feel like old friends… While searching for the story of Osman Mustafa, I would realize that I had found new "sisters"… Ozay starts telling the story of her family:
"My mother was from Prastio and my father from Avdimou… My mother came from Prastio and she got married to my father in Prastio and they settled in Avdimou… They had eight children… My father used to be a farmer, but he also worked at the British military bases… He would work many years at the bases and retire from there…
We had animals, fields and vines. We had sheep and goats and cows for milk. My father would work until noon in the bases and in the afternoon doing farming… We had a beautiful life in Avdimou… We would go to school and after school we would help our mother. All our brothers and sisters, we loved each other, all of us together. Love was very strong amongst us and my father and mother loved their kids…
When my brother had to go for his military service, because we had animals, we had to take care of them. After I graduated from the elementary school, I worked as a shepherd for three years taking care of our animals… And then I went for two years to a seamstress to learn sewing…
I must have been around 5 or 6 years old and I remember our brother Osman…. I also remember when he would get sick and they would take him to the doctor, get his pills… So long as he took his pills, he would not hurt anyone or anything… He would be okay… But you know our community, they harass and tease such people with such an illness and my father was feeling so sad about the behaviour of some people towards my brother. That's why they took him to the Athalassa Psychiatric Hospital so that he could use his pills regularly and be okay… He had had polio and high fever and that's why he had this illness – but so long as he took his pills, he did nothing harmful… I don't even have a photo of him…
Our small brother Ibrahim would get the same illness – again due to polio and high fever… A doctor had given him a wrong shot and he would lose his sense of seeing and speaking… We would take care of him in our house until he would die at the age of 21…
In 1974 when war broke out, we left our home in Avdimou to go to the British bases – we had taken nothing from our house, thinking we would go back but we would stay for three months in tents and then we would move to the northern part of our island… We would be settled at Agios Epiktitos… We had no news of Osman and we did not know that he had been killed in the bombing…
My father would visit Denktash and tell him, "My son is in the hospital…"
Denktash would speak vaguely first, "There is no clue yet but let's see what will happen later…"
But later he would tell him, "Uncle Mustafa, your son has been dead for the past two-three months…"
My mother would cry all the time, "I have another child, the hospital was bombed. Did he die? Or did they kill him? What sort of death did he face?"
She would always cry because he did not have a grave… But now we heard that there is digging in the yard of the hospital at Athalassa, our pain was renewed because my mother wanted him to be found and buried properly… I don't know, if it would be possible when his remains are found, there is an empty space next to the grave of my mother, I want to bury him there so that my mother would find peace… We lost my father 13 years ago and then a year later, 12 years ago, my mother passed away. They were such a loving couple, their love was amazing… They are buried next to each other in Agios Epiktitos…
I was always with my mother throughout my life and she would cry every day… She would always wear black. I would ask her, "Mother, why are you getting dressed like that?"
"I lost two sons my daughter" she would tell me… "My insides are like that, so let my outside appearance be the same…"
And I want to fulfil the wish of my mother, at least bury Osman next to my mother so that she can find peace and also I can find peace in my heart…"
What happened to their house in Avdimou?
She visited her house in Avdimou, there was an old woman with her old husband, a refugee from Karpaz area living in her house… She would receive them well…
"Come and stay here when you want" she would tell them but Ozay would say, "No thanks, we just came to visit" and then she would point out to the old lady, her mother's furniture…
"She was using the table and chest of my mother and my mother's bed… They were a nice family, but they passed away and now the house is closed and one room has collapsed… She used to give us honey but now they passed away…"
In Agios Epiktitos, the owner of her house, a Greek Cypriot who lived in Australia would visit and they would have a good relationship… He would want to see his house and she would say "Of course" and he would want to collect lemons from the garden and she would bring him bags to fill, as much as he wanted… "You have a beautiful heart. You received us very well. We are very happy that we saw our house and our garden" he told me… Every year or every six months he comes and visits us. He also invited us to his house in Nicosia, but we have had no opportunity to go and visit his house… I mean, if the big shots made a mistake, whether Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot, no one holds a grudge against each other…" Ozay would say…
"So, we have such a life story… As I said, our life was full of difficulties, ups and downs, we stayed in the mandra to take care of animals, everything was difficult in the old times but still they were good times…
When I came to the northern part of the island, every night when I lay down to sleep I would dream of our own fields, our own land in Avdimou, the places we had built with our own labour, with our own sweat… And I would wake up with wet cheeks, I was crying in my sleep…
Then the checkpoints opened and we went there and satisfied our longing to see our land… But how sad it is, the Greek Cypriots come now to their house and can't say "This is my house", we go to there and we can't say "This is mine" and even cut a bunch of grapes although we had put so much labour there… Unfortunately, these are the things that happened over time and we have to accept these…"
After our interview would be published, Ozay would manage to find the only photograph of her brother Osman Mustafa after a lot of efforts, speaking with relatives and searching for it…
In the photo we can see the smiling face of Osman Mustafa with his mother Meryem… This was a photo Ozay explains taken when her mother prepared to take Osman to the hospital…
May he rest in peace, may all those killed in the hospital rest in peace…
May we always be able to avoid war and conflict, and may our children manage to live in peace…
War leaves deep scars and terrible traumas…
War leaves dead bodies of innocent people…
War creates refugees, people torn from their land and thrown all over the place…
War creates poverty…
War creates pain…
War creates such a mess that even after half a century, we are trying to clean up this mess…
2.12.2017
Photo: The only photo of Osman Mustafa with his mother Meryem…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 17th of December 2017, Sunday. An extended version of this article was published in the YENİDÜZEN newspaper in Turkish on my pages called "Cyprus: The Untold Stories" on the 29th and 30th of November, 2017 and 1st of December 2017 and here are the links:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/osman-mustafa-atalassada-bombardimanda-oldu-toplu-mezara-gomuldu-bir-fotografi-bile--11592yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/osman-mustafa-atalassada-bombardimanda-oldu-toplu-mezara-gomuldu-bir-fotografi-bile--11597yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/osman-mustafa-atalassada-bombardimanda-oldu-toplu-mezara-gomuldu-bir-fotografi-bile--11602yy.htm
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