Series of developments to take place during January on the issue of missing
A series of developments will take place during January as regards the issue of missing persons, Presidential Commissioner for Humaniratiran Issues Photis Photiou has told CNA.
According to Photiou, the remains of seven Greek soldiers which have been exhumed in the government-controlled and the Turkish occupied areas of the island and have been identified, will be handed over to their families during a ceremony that will take place on January 19, in the presence of the Alternate Minister of National Defence Dimitris Vitsas.
Moreover, the remains of fifteen military officers discovered during excavations carried out in 2015 in the tomb of Makedonitissa, in Nicosia, for Noratlas, a Greek military plane shot down by friendly fire during the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, will also be handed over later this month to their relatives.
Photiou also said that in thirteen cases, exhumed remains were in the past, by mistake, not given to the right families in Greece.
“This is an aspect that troubles us and we are now making efforts to convince these families to exhume the remains and return them”, he noted, adding that during this month he will be meeting these families in Greece.
Another problem encountered, he said, concerns the cases in which remains found in Lakatamia military cemetery and kept in an ossuary were soaked in chemicals.
These remains, he noted, will be sent to a laboratory in America in an effort to isolate the genetic material.
Moreover, Photiou said that in January excavations will start in ten Turkish occupied military areas as has already been agreed in the framework of the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP). He stressed that Turkey must also give information from the archives of its army about mass grave sites.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third. Since then, the fate of hundreds of people remains unknown.
A Committee on Missing Persons was established, upon agreement between the leaders of the two communities, with the scope of exhuming, identifying and returning the remains of missing persons to their relatives.