Determining the missing persons’ fate is a priority of the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, who raises this issue at every opportunity before the EU institutions, as well as to foreign leaders of states and governments, Head of Humanitarian Affairs for Missing Persons and the Enclaved of the Republic of Cyprus, Anna Aristotelous said on Saturday.
She added that the President’s aim is to intensify pressure on Turkey to overcome any obstacles that the country raises as regards the investigation and the excavations being carried out and to give access to data and records of the Turkish army, which will help the struggle to determine the fate of missing persons.
In an eulogy on Saturday at the funeral of the victims of the 1974 Turkish invasion, Maritsa, Nikos and Giorgos Drakos (mother and sons) at the Church of Saints Constantinos and Helen in Tseri, Aristotelous said that the struggle to determine the fate of the missing persons will continue with the same intensity, consistency and determination, until the day we will determine the fate of the last missing person. “And this is our duty to all the families whose wound has remained open for so many decades,” she said.
Aristotelous referred to the tragic story of mother Maritsa and her two sons, Nikos, 13 years old and Giorgos, 16 years old at the time, from Agios Georgios of Kyrenia who on 20 July 1974 tried to escape but were surrounded by Turkish soldiers and were executed near the village of Ftericha. Their father Christos miraculously escaped after being captured, held prisoner and then released after seeing them dead.
Anna Aristotelous said that Christos, along with his son Savvas, who in 1974 was serving in the army, lived as refugees with the burden of the extermination of their entire family. Christos Drakos died five years ago.
The remains of Maritsa and Nikos were found in the area of the village of Ftericha and identified on 27 October 2017, but Giorgos’ remains were not identified, she noted. “Christos Drakos passed away five years ago with this grief”, she added.
“Today, our homeland welcomes them. With them will rest a small part of the remains that are believed to belong to Giorgos, at the request of his brother Savvas, even though they could not be identified due to the fact that they were exposed to the weather conditions, but were found in the same place as his mother Maritsa and brother Nikos,” Aristotelous said.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied 37% of its territory. Since then, the fate of hundreds of people remains unknown.
A Committee on Missing Persons has been established, upon agreement between the leaders of the two communities, with the scope of exhuming, identifying and returning to their relatives the remains of 492 Turkish Cypriots and 1,510 Greek Cypriots, who went missing during the inter-communal fighting of 1963-1964 and in 1974.