Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
Thanks to our readers who had shown us and the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee the exact location of their burial site, two of the three "missing persons" whose remains had been found last year in a well in Livadia, Karpas have been identified through DNA tests by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they are now returning to their loved ones for burial… There aren't enough words to thank my wonderful readers for their humanitarian, voluntary help in this…
One of those identified through the DNA tests by CMP is Yiasoumis Kavalierou Outtoumbos from Komi Kepir who had been taken from his house and the other person is the priest from Davlos, Papachrisostomos Christophi who was taken from near his house and "disappeared"… And now we wait for the results of the identification process of the third person in the well…
Our readers, throughout the years have helped us to try to identify in which well these "missing persons" had been buried. At least four of my readers had been working with us and I would bring some of them together with the officials of the CMP in order to go and visit the area where the well was… In one instance we had gone to Livadia on the 28th of June 2016 together with the officials of the CMP and my reader and he had told us what he knew about this well…
Finally one of our wonderful readers would help to find a witness who would show me and Xenophon Kallis, The Assistant to the Greek Cypriot member of the CMP and Halil Sayin, an investigator for the Turkish Cypriot Member of the CMP, the exact location of this well on the 18th of August 2016. Immediately after, the CMP excavation team would start digging the spot we had shown and would find the well there and would find the remains of three "missing persons".
On the 26th of September 2016, I had written the story of this well in POLITIS on these pages… I had said:
"A possible burial site in Livadia…
We are on the road again on the 18th of August 2016, Thursday morning…
This time we are going to Karpaz…
We are going together with Xenophon Kallis, the Assistant to the Greek Cypriot Member of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and Halil Sayin, one of the investigators of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee.
First we go to pick up our witness and then we go to Livadia (Sazlikeuy as it is called by Turkish Cypriots now) in Karpaz.
A few months ago, on the 28th of June 2016 Tuesday, we had come to Karpaz again.
One of my readers had informed us that he knew of a possible burial site in Livadia months ago and I had arranged for the Assistant of the Turkish Cypriot Member of CMP, Murat Soysal to go and meet him.
He had shown a field where a Greek Cypriot "missing person" had been buried in Livadia…
They had started digging but after some time had stopped so that is why he would call me to ask the reason why.
That is why we had gone to Karpaz on the 28th of June with the officials of the CMP to look at the field…
We had taken a witness and had gone to a field outside Livadia…
Our witness would tell us the story:
One night he was on duty at a military post not far from this field.
This was 1974…
Then some Turkish Cypriots whom he knew had come to his military post and told him, "You will hear some gun shots so don't panic… We are going to send the papaz of Davlos and Andrikko to their village…"
He had in fact heard gun shots after a little while…
On the next day, one of his superiors would tell our witness to take a tractor and go and plough the field outside Livadia…
According to our witness, in a well, they had buried the priest of Davlos and maybe another "missing" Greek Cypriot, Andrikko and had covered the well.
But since they did not want anyone to understand that they had buried some "missing" in that well, they had sent our witness to plough that field so that the mouth of the well would not be visible…
He had taken a tractor and had started ploughing the field but somehow the tractor would stop in the field where the well was and would not start. He would need another tractor to take the tractor out of the field…
"I had felt eerie having heard the gun shots the previous night" he would tell us…
Our witness had shown us this field and had told us about where the well might be…
We had thanked him and left Livadia – we were with Xenophon Kallis and Okan Oktay, the Coordinator of Exhumations of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…
With the help of my dear friend Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia, I had met the son of the priest of Davlos and had spoken with him…
And then I would ask questions about the priest of Davlos, Papachrisostomos to another reader…
Who was this priest?
Why he was killed in Livadia and not Galatia?
This reader would give me the phone of another witness and I would speak with that witness as well.
According to this new witness, the priest of Davlos, after being taken away from Davlos had never been taken to Galatia… He had been taken to Livadia directly and had been kept in the military building for a few days.
According to my reader, there was no one else with him, he had been alone…
"The person who took him to Livadia was from Galatia… So they knew he was being kept in Galatia I believe… And I guess, they must have been given orders to kill him and that is why they had killed him…"
This new witness that I found with the help of one of my readers knew where the well had been…
So that is why we would go to Livadia again on the 18th of August 2016 in order for this new witness to show us the place of the well in the same field we had shown before…
"They had dug this well in order to find water but did not find any water… They had left it open" he says…
Kallis asks him how deep the well might have been…
"As deep as a shiro can dig" he says… "They did not dig this well manually but with a bulldozer…"
"Because" he says, "they did not find any water in this well, they did not build the mouth of the well, as they would normally do… That is why you need to dig deep in this field in order to find this well – because it has no mouth in the traditional sense, it had not been built with stones… You need to dig as deep as possible in order to find this well… But as I remember" he says, "it was roughly around here… Not near the road, but towards here…"
"Who dug this well?" we ask him…
He gives us a name…
"He was the only one who had a shiro…"
We thank him and leave Livadia… After we drop him off in his house we get back to Nicosia."
So this was what I had written last year and soon after, in October 2016 we would see the results of our efforts with my dear friend Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia, the finding of the remains of three "missing persons" in that well…
After the identification of Yiasoumis Kavalierou Outtoumbos from Komi Kepir, Christina would help me to find out details about his life – Christina would call his daughter Mrs. Panayiotou and learn the details:
*** Outtoumbos was born in 1916 and was living in Komi Kepir. His wife had died in 1968. They had two daughters and one of them had gone to England in 1971 and had got married there in 1973. So Outtoumbos was living in Komi Kepir with his daughter Panayiotou.
*** After the war in 1974, a team of Turkish Cypriots from Komi Kepir would pass every day from their house and would stop their car and stand outside and speak with Outtoumbos, asking him various questions. But they had never entered his yard or his house until the 2nd of September 1974 when an armed Turkish Cypriot would go inside the house and then get out. Outtoumbos was sitting in the yard with his daughter Panayiotou, with his villager Kyriacos Hadjisotiri and the sister of Outtoumbos, Vassilou.
*** A Turkish Cypriot from Komi Kepir called I. would tell him "You have to come with us to the "casino" (the coffee shop) and they would ask you a few things" and would take him – Outtoumbos was wearing pandoufla on his feet… So this innocent civilian would be taken from his house, would "disappear" and no one would know anything about him from then on…
*** The harassment of the family of Outtoumbos would not stop even after he would disappear and his daughter would start hiding in a neighbour's house while the sister of Outtoumbos, Mrs. Vassilou would live in their house. The Turkish Cypriots who had taken Outtoumbos would come every night and knock on the door, looking for the daughter of Outtoumbos but they would not be able to find her. Because Panayiotou was hiding in the house of their neighbour Prokopis… She had gone there paying great care so that no one would see her, passing from the fields instead of the road…
*** One day the auntie of Panayiotou, Mrs. Vassilou would see the Turkish Cypriot called I. in the street and tell him, "Why are you knocking at our door every night? We are people from the same village… What do you want from us?" These words of Vassilou would have an impact and from then on the knocking at their door would stop.
*** 13 days after the disappearance of Outtoumbos, the same team of Turkish Cypriots would this time go to Prokopis and would take Kyriacos Hadjisotiri from there and he too, would "disappear". Again thank to the same readers of mine, with their great help we would find his burial site in Livadia, in another well, not too far from the well where the remains of Outtoumbos was found. The remains of Kyriacos Hadjisotiri would be identified and returned to his family for burial… I would go to his funeral together with my friend Christina…
*** When they had gone to take Kyriacos Hadjisotiri from Komi Kepir, from the house of Prokopis, Panayiotou who had been hiding in that house would hear their voices and would recognize them from their voices and would continue to hide…
*** After 1974, Mrs. Panayiotou would go to London and settle there… But the Turkish Cypriot from Komi Kepir called I. would continue to search for her even in London and would ask questions about her… So Mrs. Panayiotou would send him a message:
"In Komi Kepir there were Turkish soldiers, so we were afraid… But now we are in London, in a civilised place… And I am afraid of no one – if he comes, tell him I will say a few words to him… He is the one who took my father from our house and made him "disappear"… Let him come and I have words to say to him!" After hearing this clear message, I. would stop looking for her…
Is this story `surprising`? Definitely not since we have enough information that some Turkish Cypriot officials pursued the policy of harassment in order to `fasten` the leaving of the Greek Cypriot population from the Karpaz area despite the `agreements` of the leaders of the two communities right after 1974. The Greek Cypriots of Karpaz area were supposed to stay where they were according to these agreements but throughout the years as I continue my investigations I clearly understand that everything possible was done by the Turkish Cypriot authorities or by men under their own control to try to push the Greek Cypriots of Karpaz to leave the area and to go to the southern part of the island. In this painful and traumatic process, there has even been some killings, not just harassment in order to push them to go away… What the Outtoumbos family lived through is sadly part of this whole `policy` or `process` to `clear` Karpaz of the Greek Cypriot inhabitants of the area…
As for the story of the priest from Davlos, I had interviewed his son Christakis Christofis with the help of Christina and had learned the details of how he had been taken away from his village… In the area of Davlos, some Greek Cypriot soldiers had been hiding and some Turkish Cypriots were suspicious that a priest from Davlos was helping them… So they would go and take Papachrisostomos Christofi and he would "disappear"…
But actually there were three priests in the village – one who had been retired, another younger priest and Papachrisostomos who was NOT the priest of Davlos but he was working at Vogolida and had nothing to do with the hiding soldiers… I believe that they had taken the "wrong" person but even if they had realized they had not let him go… Instead he would be killed and buried in the well in Livadia…
I share the pain of the relatives of Outtoumbos and Papachrisostomos and I will attend their funerals together with my friend Christina… May they rest in peace now… And once again I thank all my readers for helping to find their burial site…
16.12.2017
Photo: This is the photo taken on the 18th of August 2016 when together with a reader, we showed to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, the exact location of the well where three Greek Cypriot "missing persons" were buried in Livadia... In the photo is Papachrisostomos Christophi and Yiasoumis Kavalierou Outtoumbos whose remains were found in that well upon digging by CMP in the later months...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 7th of January 2018, Sunday. This article was published in Turkish in the YENİDÜZEN newspaper on the 12th and 13th of December 2017 and the links to the articles in Turkish are:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/sazlikoyde-bir-kuyuya-gomulmuslerdi1-11651yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/sazlikoyde-bir-kuyuya-gomulmuslerdi2-11657yy.htm
NOTE to my readers: The funeral of Papachrisostomos Christophi will be on the 13th of January 2018 in Strovoulos, Nicosia and the funeral of Yiasoumis Kavalierou Outtoumbos will be on the 20th of January 2018 in Larnaca... May they rest in peace... We await to see who will be identified as the third "missing persons" whose remains were found in this well...
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