Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
Samiye was in the seventh month of her pregnancy to her seventh child when her husband Mehmet Aziz, a truck driver working for a company in Xeros, carrying logs would go `missing` in January 1964…
Samiye was from Ktima, Paphos and Mehmet Aziz was from Ambelikou – they had got married, lived some time in Paphos and later on, moved to her husband's village due to his work around Kampos-Xeros-Pentayia…
Mehmet was a quiet person, never gave trouble to anyone, was easy-going and loved his wife and his six kids… He was waiting eagerly for his seventh child…
Both him and his wife had a lot of Greek Cypriot friends who loved them dearly… Samiye had friends in Xeros, a Greek Cypriot seamstress and they loved her dearly…
Mehmet would go to Nicosia, his truck loaded with logs and from there he was supposed to go to Famagusta to take the logs but it was the end of December 1963 and he would get stuck in Nicosia and would have to stay there for more than a week…
But he was restless… Staying in his auntie's house, he wanted to get back to Ambelikou as soon as possible since he was worried about his wife, expecting the baby…
`I must get back… I must get back…`
That's all that he was saying to his auntie…
`She is going to give birth and I need to be with her…`
In those days there was a tradition to keep the umbilical cords of the new-born babies since people believed that it would bring them luck…
In his wallet were all the six umbilical cords of his six children! Wrapped in cotton, he always carried these in his wallet…
His daughter Nedjla remembers that no matter at what time he came from work, he would wake all his children and would want to sit with them, eat with them, see them and hug them… It did not matter whether it was the middle of the night and the kids were sleeping – he missed his kids and he would go around their beds, waking them up to tell them, yes, he was home…
When he would go `missing`, the six umbilical cords were wrapped in cotton, in his wallet – as in life, he carried part of his babies in death as well…
According to stories, he tried to get back to Ambelikou with the car driven by Mustafa Salih Pasha, a Chevrolet… Mustafa Salih Pasha was also a truck driver and his relative but someone from Nicosia had got stuck in Ambelikou due to the intercommunal fighting at the end of December 1963 and he had come to take this person from Ambelikou to Nicosia…
So together, Mustafa and Mehmet would set out to go to Ambelikou but they would `disappear`…
There were rumours that they had been told to stop and they did not and that they were shot around the Horse Racing Track in Agios Dometios, Nicosia…
Samiye would become extremely worried and agitated when her husband would not get back…
She would tell her children to stay at home, lock the door and not get out – she would go to Xeros to ask for help to find out about what had happened to her husband, from her Greek Cypriot friends…
So this seven-month pregnant woman would walk to Xeros only to find out that some houses had now become military posts and she would encounter people she did not know… One Greek Cypriot soldier she did not know would start shouting at her:
"So you came looking for your husband, ha?! Go away before I kill you and the bastard you carry in your belly!"
Her friend the seamstress would hear and come and get her, asking her why she took such a risk, coming to Xeros!
`I want my husband back!`
This is all Samiye was saying…
The seamstress, as well as other Greek Cypriot friends would help her to try to get back to Ambelikou…
Expecting the baby any moment, she could not stay there after her husband went `missing` so a friend of theirs would help her and the six kids to get to Lefka…
In Lefka, they would stay at the police station for some time and then she would give birth to her seventh child…
She would name him `Savash`, meaning `War` since he was born during the war… The baby who would never have a chance to set eyes on his father…
But Samiye would not stay in Lefka – all she could think of was to try to investigate what happened to her husband and try to get him back…
So she would decide to go to Nicosia… But how to go? Roads were closed in those days, no one could get in or out of Lefka…
She would find a way and with the help of her friends, she would go together with the dead bodies and the wounded Turkish Cypriots being carried from Lefka to Nicosia in a Red Cross vehicle…
Nedjla remembers how the Red Cross chauffeur warned them…
`He told us that we needed to stay in this partition of the vehicle and not make a single noise since if the Greek Cypriots on the roadblocks found us, they would kill him… And he told us not to utter any noise…`
So the kids would stay quiet and they would pass roadblocks to come to Nicosia…
They would go to the auntie of their father and stay with her…
Samiye would start searching for her husband… Any prisoners of war who would be exchanged, she would run to them asking about her husband…
Then she would think of something else: In the sealed, locked out Turkish Cypriot part of Nicosia of those days, she would find a way to cross with her kids to go to see Yiorgadjis, the Minister of Interior of those times!
She would reach where he was and his black car parked outside but they would not allow her to see him…
She would ask the driver of the car whether Yiorgadjis would come down and he would say, "Yes" so she would wait with her kids… She would pick up a stone and tell one of her kids to throw it at the car and the child would do that! And the driver would catch the kid and start yelling and while all this is happening, Yiorgadjis would come and she would appeal to him…
"Let her come and speak" he would say and would listen as this woman surrounded with her kids would tell the story of her husband and ask him to find her husband…
"I came here secretly" she would say, "to ask you to get my husband back…"
He would say "If he is alive, I will find him and I will tell you, I promise you this…" and he would fish out a five pound note from his pocket to give it to her but she would refuse…
"I don't want your money! I did not come here to ask for money! I am here to ask you to get my husband back to me!" she would say and throw the money on the floor…
When she would get back to the Turkish Cypriot controlled part of Nicosia, everyone would be really angry with her!
"Why did you go! How did you go!"
So from then on, they would take measures so she would never be able to cross back to go and see Yiorgadjis…
Two Turkish Cypriot women from the social aid department would try to help Samiye and her seven kids to try to survive in Nicosia… They would live under very miserable conditions, Nedjla would remember, as refugees in their own land…
"At some point we were staying together with refugees from other villages who came in Nicosia and we were housed at the Ataturk Elementary School… We had no money, no food… I remember us kids, collecting the peels of the watermelon from the trash and eating those…"
Finally they would be settled in a hospital building that had been built recently – they were given two adjacent rooms to stay.
Melahat and Nejla would be in charge of the smaller kids and would take care of them while Samiye would go to search for information about her "missing" husband…
One day as they were sitting outside the hospital building, they would see the truck that Mehmet Aziz had been driving! The truck was driven by some Turkish Cypriot soldiers and had come to a military post there…
All his kids would run to hug the truck and caress it – they recognized, it belonged to their father… And Samiye would go utterly crazy! She would run and get in the truck and grab the wheel and start pulling off her hair…
"You have his truck! So where is my husband! Give me my husband back!"
She would be delirious and would not get out of the truck…
Then the commander of that post would come and he would find out details for her… The truck had been in use in Boghazi-Kyrenia by the Turkish Cypriot military units! But no news of her husband…
After this incident they would pay her for two months a monthly wage and then it would stop…
She would run to ask why they cut the wages they gave to her…
"It was blood money! We paid you… And it is done!" they would tell her…
Samiye would continue her search for her husband…
Just before he had gone "missing" Mehmet Aziz had a brown suit made for him by a tailor and it was hanging in the wardrobe… Samiye would knit a brown sweater so he could wear with his suit… She would keep the suit for years since she would expect him to come back and wear it, together with the brown sweater she knitted for him. After decades of waiting, finally she would give this suit to someone in need to wear…
But always she would wait for him…
"He will come… When will he come… Yes, he will come back…"
She would die ten years ago and when dying she would ask her daughter Nedjla that if her husband's remains are found, to bury him next to her…
After 1974 since the family had been living in Morphou, they would bury her in Morphou… But as the children of Nedjla would grow up and start going to university, she would move her house to Geunyeli, in order to be able to help her children and be close to them…
"If my father's remains are found, now where will we bury him? We are no longer in Morphou… But my mother is buried there… That was her wish…"
"Perhaps you can buy two plots for graves in Nicosia and move her remains to Nicosia, that is if the remains of your father are found" I tell her, to console her…
According to the Turkish Cypriot traditions, one day before "Bayram" you go and visit your relatives' graves and lay flowers and burn incense and pour some water over the grave… Twice a year we have "Bayram" and twice a year, since her father has gone "missing", Nedjla goes to the cemetery and finds a desolate grave, someone forgotten, maybe a child's grave or someone whose relatives are no longer there to take care of the grave… She lays flowers, burns incense ("buhur"), pours water and prays for that person in that grave and for her father…
"I do that for my father…" she says "and for that person in that miserable grave…"
She makes an appeal to both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots to speak up and share what they know:
"I do not hold a grudge against Greek Cypriots… They too are humans like us… I went to see my house in Paphos and the old lady living there opened the door and said, "This is your house, go to the kitchen, make your own coffee…" And she gave me a tray when I was leaving, as a gift… She is human, just like us…
If I knew of the burial place of a Greek Cypriot, I would not be afraid to speak up, I would speak out loudly and show it… It would console people at least to know where their loved one is buried…
I appeal to Turkish Cypriots to say if they know anything about my father… We have questions in our mind about the truck… Did my father resist in order not to give the truck of his Greek Cypriot boss and did they kill him and bury him somewhere? If this happened, let them come out and say it and show us where he is buried…
If some Greek Cypriots killed him and made him "disappear", let them come out and say it and show us where he is buried…
So that we can find a little bit of peace, take his bones and bury him and let him rest and let us rest…"
1.10.2019
Photos:
1. Mrs. Samiye with her seven kids in the yard of the polyclinic…
2. The "missing" Turkish Cypriot Mehmet Aziz…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 3rd of November, 2019, Sunday. A series of articles about the "missing" Turkish Cypriot Mehmet Aziz was published in the YENIDUZEN newspaper on the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th and 18th of October 2019 and here are the links:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/mehmet-aziz-kayip-edildiginde-alti-cocugunun-gobek-bagciklari-cuzdanindaydi1-14573yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/mehmet-aziz-kayip-edildiginde-alti-cocugunun-gobek-bagciklari-cuzdanindaydi2-14577yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/mehmet-aziz-kayip-edildiginde-alti-cocugunun-gobek-bagciklari-cuzdanindaydi-3-14582yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/mehmet-aziz-kayip-edildiginde-alti-cocugunun-gobek-bagciklari-cuzdanindaydi-4-14590yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/kayip-bir-baba-yedi-evlatla-poliklinikte-iki-odacikta-yasayan-bir-anne-14637yy.htm
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