Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
12 little coffins are lined up, side by side, adjacent to each other in the yard of the mosque in Maratha… The little coffins have been put on tables and lined up next to each other, almost touching each other…
The young and the old, the men and women have been killed and thrown into a mass grave…
Years later they have been dug up and taken out of the mass grave, taken to a laboratory in the buffer zone by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, their remains were analysed, DNA tests have been run and they have been identified. 10 women and 2 men have been laid down in these 12 small coffins and brought back here, close to the place where they had been massacred… And the 12 little coffins have been lined up side by side in the yard of the Maratha mosque… They will be reburied for the third time…
The first time was when they had been killed on the 14th of August 1974 and thrown in a mass grave and after the child who had survived the massacre because he managed to hide – Shafak Nihat whose story I have written here before – would discover the mass grave in the rubbish damp of Maratha, they would be exhumed… And then reburied…
Years and years would pass by and then the Cyprus Missing Persons' archaeologists would exhume them again and would take them out of the burial site and would take their remains to the laboratory of CMP for DNA tests and now that they have been identified, they have been taken back in these 12 little coffins to their village Maratha to be buried for the third time… They have come back to their village Maratha in these small coffins to say goodbye to their loved ones one last time and then to be laid to rest in the graves with their names engraved on them…
When the photographs are put in front of the coffins in the yard of the mosque, that's when the cries start and the women run to hug the coffins where their mothers' and sisters' or grandmothers and grandfathers' remains are… They cry out, they cry out loud and start talking to their loved ones in the coffins…
"Mummy, I could never get enough of your smell!" cries one relative…
They cry and their tears and cries rise up above Cyprus like a stream of clouds… We all cry, we all have tears in our eyes – this is the worst view we can have while we are alive, the most tragic view, one of the saddest days…
A cry rises up from the 12 little coffins and envelops our island Cyprus…
Those Greek Cypriots belonging to EOKA-B who have committed the massacre at Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa villages are damned and cursed by all people around…
In the yard of the mosque there are tears, anger, sadness and all of it mixes up here, in front of these little coffins with photographs in front of them, showing the 10 women and 2 men…
The hodja of the mosque in Maratha goes on to do the last prayer for them and women move away from the coffins, but they do not stop crying…
This is one of the saddest days for our island…
On the 20th of July 1974, some Greek Cypriots belonging to the EOKA-B group had arrested the whole population of the three villages (Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa) and took them to the adjacent village Peristerona Pygi… In Peristerona Pygi, they would gather all the men and would take them to the Famagusta Karaoli Camp and then from there to Limassol as prisoners of war… Only the old men, women and children would be allowed to go back to their villages.
From 20th of July until 14th of August 1974, isolated and unprotected, the old people, women and children would come under the harassment of the Greek Cypriots of EOKA-B of Peristerona Pygi and some other adjacent villages…
When Turkey would start its second phase of its military operation in Cyprus on the 14th of August 1974, these Greek Cypriot members of EOKA-B would "panic" and they would kill all those in the three villages: 126 Turkish Cypriots, young and old, children and babies, men and women – all of them would be massacred and buried in two mass graves in Maratha and Aloa… And then they would leave these three villages…
They would run off, leaving behind the biggest massacre of our recent history…
Few days later, Shafak Nihat, the young boy who had survived their massacre would discover the mass grave of Maratha: He had been going and playing around the rubbish damp of Maratha and when he would go there after the massacre, he would notice that the shape of the rubbish damp had changed… And he would see the hand of a child in his pyjamas sticking out of the "pyramids" of dead bodies buried there, created by the EOKA-B… He would run and notify his family who had also survived since they had managed to hide and this is how what had happened would come out in Maratha…
And then the mass grave of the massacred Turkish Cypriots would also be discovered in Aloa and then this would start a horrible, vicious circle of other killings: In a lot of places, some Turkish Cypriots, using the massacre of 126 women and children by EOKA-B, would use this as a pretext for "revenge" and a lot of Greek Cypriot prisoners of war and civilians would be killed and they would become "missing" like that…
After 18 years of investigations about "missing" Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots and mass graves and burial sites, after talking to hundreds of people all over Cyprus, I can easily say that the massacre of EOKA-B in Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa is the worst we have ever seen in our recent history and that it had "triggered" a series of other killings and massacres and has created rivers of blood and rivers of enmity among the two main communities of our island… Perhaps this had been the underlying aim of EOKA-B because until the discovery of what had happened in Maratha-Aloa-Sandallaris, we do not see mass killings… It is a turning point in a way in the war in 1974 – whoever the "mastermind" of EOKA-B was in this area, they have achieved to put Cyprus on the list as a country where crimes against humanity has been committed, both by killing and by triggering a series of killings that no one could stop… I am not talking about soldiers fighting each other and killing each other during the war – I am talking about the killing of civilians who were either in their villages or were prisoners of war… This is the darkest page of our history that we need to learn and understand and see how the consequences of the actions of a group of fascists can destroy life… And unless we understand that, we cannot move towards the future: Because there will be no "future" for our children on this land unless we understand and acknowledge and face the darkness created by such groups and such people on this island… Because they will continue to try to do the same things over and over again since no one ever held them responsible – those who have committed such grave crimes from both communities – both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots – have always found protection and praise from their own "side"… They have never been accountable for the murders and massacres they have committed and continued their lives, sometimes even benefiting and being treated like "heroes" (both after the conflict in 1963-64 and 1974), getting benefits and positions and power…
With the massacres of EOKA-B in Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa and the "revenge" massacres of some Turkish Cypriots after that, both communities have lost… Both communities lost their loved ones and both communities have paid a very heavy human price…
After the hodja's last prayers and speeches, each family goes to the allocated family graves to them and here, bury their loved ones with their own hands…
In the 12 little coffins Raziye Hasan Rustem, Ayshe Mustafa Altemur, Olcay Mustafa Altemur, Rasime Osman, Sezay Osman, Mustafa Hasan Ergech, Cemaliye Hasan Ozkuyucu, Mehmet Osman Kaynak, Zuhre Mehmet Kaynak, Ulfet Mehmet Salih, Fatma Arif and Hatice Sadik Ozkuyucu are buried…
The youngest of the 12 Turkish Cypriots that we have buried on the 6th of September 2018 Thursday was Olcay Mustafa… She had been born in 1960 but according to her sister Djemaliye, they had written the wrong date on her gravestone… They had written 1958 as her birthdate.
"This is wrong" Djemaliye Hanim explains to me… So Olcay Mustafa was only 14 years old… And today, Djemaliye Hanim buried both her sister Olcay and her mother Ayshe Mustafa… There is a third grave which is empty that belongs to her father Mustafa Mehmet. As we have found out he had been taken separately and before the others on the 10th of August 1974 and killed in Peristerona Pygi… This, we learned from our journalist friend Michalis Theodorou's articles recently published in the POLITIS newspaper…
In February this year, we had done an activity in Larnaca together with the "Workers' Democracy" Group… I and relatives of "missing" Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots were speakers at this event in Larnaca… After the event was over a Greek Cypriot whom I had never seen before had come to me and told me that "One Turkish Cypriot would be missing from the mass grave in Maratha because they had taken one Turkish Cypriot and killed him separately and buried him elsewhere" and he would tell me that he had heard this from another Greek Cypriot. I kindly ask him to contact me again with or without his name to please help us to find the "missing" Mustafa Mehmet's burial site… My CYTA phone number is 99 966518. Anyone who has information about Mustafa Mehmet taken from Maratha to Peristerona Pygi, I appeal to you to help us if you know his burial site…
In the light of our journalist friend Michalis Theodorou's recent series of articles, I hope that the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee has started investigations, particularly about the "missing" Mustafa Mehmet from Maratha…
I share the pain of all the relatives from Maratha and victims of all other massacres no matter what their ethnicity is and I promise to continue to struggle for peace with all my strength so that no such massacres would happen in Cyprus again…
7.9.2018
Photo: Women crying over the coffins of their loved ones in Maratha...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 16th of September 2018, Sunday. A similar article was published in Turkish in the YENİDÜZEN newspaper on my pages entitled "Cyprus: The Untold Stories" on the 7th of September 2018 and here is the link:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/12-kucuk-tabuttan-kibrisa-yayilan-ciglik-12892yy.htm
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