Death certificates of missing persons, whose remains have been identified via DNA analysis, will now include the cause of death and a brief report on the events that led to their death. Up until now, the death certificate which was given to the relatives, indicated “unknown” as cause of death.
The Chair of the House Refugees Committee, MP Skevi Koukouma said Wednesday that the period of Turkish invasion will be added on the certificate as date of death. The relatives will also be given a report on the events that led to the missing persons’ death , adding that some MPs have suggested that these specifications should be included in death certificates of individuals that have already been identified.
She said that to date the remains of 358 Greek Cypriots and 123 Turkish Cypriots have been identified. Koukouma also said that seven groups of scientists have been working in the occupied areas for the discovery of the remains of Turkish Cypriots while a different group is working near a mine where the remains of other individuals have already been discovered.
She also raised her concerns over the fact that the authorities on the missing persons’ issues are understaffed and that the information that is given by various people on possible locations where missing persons were buried often cannot be used in the best way.
She also pointed out that the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) is facing economic problems and called on the government and others to find more donors.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third.
As a result of the invasion, 1,619 Greek Cypriots were listed as missing, most of whom soldiers or reservists, who were captured in the battlefield. Among them, however, were many civilians, women and children, arrested by the Turkish invasion troops and Turkish Cypriot paramilitary groups, within the area controlled by the Turkish army after the end of hostilities and far from the battlefield.
Many of those missing were last seen alive in the hands of the Turkish military.
A further 41 more cases of Greek Cypriot missing persons have been recently added. These cases concern the period between 1963-1964, when inter-communal fighting broke out but none of them has been identified yet.
The number of Turkish Cypriot missing since 1974 and 1963/64 stands at 503. Exhumations are carried out on both sides of the buffer zone by bi-communal teams (6 teams in the north and 2 teams in the south) made of over 55 Cypriot archaeologists and anthropologists.
Bi-communal teams are now autonomous after having been trained by international experts from the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) during the first 18 months of the project