Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
Ten years ago, on a November morning I had gone to Lysi to meet a dear friend in order to investigate about the `missing persons` and to look at some possible burial sites around Lysi and Sinda…
We had gone and picked up a Turkish Cypriot witness from Sinda who knew some burial sites and he would show us these places…
Between the road from Sinda to Lysi, a dirt track road, there was an elaborate well and we had gone there as well… It was called `The well of Kallis`…
He had told us the story of Demetris Stroufos who had been an old man in vraka and how he heard that they had thrown him in this well and the old man had tried to climb back up and how they would throw him back in that well again…
When I say `they`, I mean some Turkish Cypriots from Sinda, who had killed not only Demetris Stroufos but also some other Greek Cypriots from Lysi… We have managed with this friend's and with the old man's help to show the burial sites of these `missing` and when CMP dug in the places we showed, they found the remains of most of the `missing` persons from Lysi… Together with our wonderful friend Kyriacos Andreou from Lysi, we would continue to work and Kokos Yeropapas would also join us in our trips to Sinda and the surrounding areas…
Like so many others, Demetris Stroufos had been killed because the killers wanted to take his animals…
My Turkish Cypriot witness had told me ten years ago, that they had killed him in order to take his flock…
`They shot him and threw him in the well` he had told me `but he did not die and he started climbing up the well… In this big well, there was also a ladder. He had climbed over the `tavlarka` (a deck inside the well just over the water for placing the centrifugal water pump which had access to the top by a metal ladder for easier pump maintenance) and was shaking the ladder… So one of those who shot him went inside the well and shot him again and threw him down again…`
This was a very old, rectangular well of stone, almost an antique… It had other chain of wells connected to it, the `laoumia`… He would remember seeing the dead body over the water in the well for some time…
The well where Demetris Stroufos had been buried was somehow not excavated by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee for many years to come… It took CMP a whole of nine years to excavate this well… We had shown the well back in 2009 and then in 2010 to the officials of the CMP – and each time we went to the area to investigate, we would pass from there and look at this well… It was as if we were saying to Stroufos, `Don't worry, eventually they will find you here…`
Nine years is a long time – they were saying that the owner of the well was not giving `permission` to dig in his well… That there was water in the well so it was impossible to dig… They were talking about various different pretexts about why the well was not being explored…
Then finally last year, after a lapse of a whole nine years, we saw that the CMP started exploring the well…
They would bring expert well diggers who would take out the water from the well with pumps and instead of making a ramp and destroying this beautiful well, they would take out all the soil and all the water from the well to find the remains of Demetris Stroufos, just like my witness had told me and the CMP ten years ago that yes, he was inside this well…
So on the 19th of August 2019, we would go together with Kyriacos Andreou to attend his funeral in Larnaca so that I could say goodbye to him…
Hello and goodbye dear Demetris Stroufos…
You were one of the innocent who died in the hands of some evil Turkish Cypriots, ignorant and greedy, eager to steal your flock and make it `theirs`… So many Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots were killed both in the 1963-64 conflict and in the war in 1974 who had nothing to do with the conflict. They were not soldiers, they were civilians minding their animals, trying to raise their children, working, sweating it out, building their homes, caring for their gardens, hugging their loved ones…
They were taken from the streets they were travelling on, they were taken from the fields they were working in, killed and thrown in a well or buried in a field… When they committed such terrible crimes of killing some people from `the other community`, they would wrap a blanket around themselves like a cape called `patriotism` - this was to cover up the murder of the innocent… `Patriotism` would hide the flocks they stole, the houses and fields they would take over and these `ultra-nationalists` like the cowboys of the wild west would prosper out of the misery of others… They would be the first to stand against any sort of `solution` to the `Cyprus problem`, afraid that their dirt and their war crimes would come out and become visible, if our two communities started communicating with each other and sharing their stories… They would fear peace and reconciliation like they would fear death…
I would search for the innocent victims dear Demetris, just as I was searching for you, just as I searched for Michalis Pekri from Vatyli, Rifat Salih from Lefka, Huseyin Ahmet Kamber and his wife Shefika Huseyin from Pervolia-Trikomo and so many others… They were all killed and thrown in the wells – Pekri was in a well that was deeper than 30 meters in Vatyli… Rifat Salih, together with the young boy Ertan Ali from Lefka was in a well outside Kokkinotrimitia… Huseyin Ahmet Kamber and his wife Shefika were in a well in Trikomo, just outside the wheat warehouse…
They had killed, some evil Turkish Cypriots and some evil Greek Cypriots and would try to hide the bodies and where to bury them but the well that became the graves of so many…
I would search for them dear Demetris – and some of them I would find through the help of my wonderful readers from both the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities…
I feel grateful that after 10 years, your remains were found in the well we had shown… I feel grateful that my wonderful reader and the old man – our witness – had shown us this well… I thank them with all my heart…
Even though we have some evil Turkish Cypriots and evil Greek Cypriots that we are forced to live with, we also have kind-hearted Turkish Cypriots and kind-hearted Greek Cypriots with compassion towards the other community and who help us… For this, I am grateful because this is the source of our hope for this land…
May you rest in peace now dear Demetris Stroufos… May you rest in peace finally in your grave in Larnaca…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 22nd of September, 2019.
Photo 1: The well we showed to the CMP in 2009 – that is ten years ago – and then in 2010... Here the CMP archaeologist at that time taking notes about the well... We would continue to show this well to the officials of the CMP since there were eye witnesses telling us the story of Demetris Stroufos and giving details about how he was thrown in this well... From the time we showed this well and wrote the story ten years ago, it would take a decade for the remains of Demetris Stroufos to be exhumed, identified and buried by his family...
Photo 2: The sad wife of Demetris Stroufos, Maria Strufos at the funeral... She is 95 years old...
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