Nineteen Greek Cypriot missing persons are found behind the prisons in occupied Nicosia; Columnist wonders why the regime said nothing on the issue until now
Turkish Cypriot daily Yeni Duzen newspaper (16.09.15) reports that the number of Greek Cypriot missing persons found during the excavations in the area behind the prisons in the occupied part of Nicosia increased to nineteen.
Referring to the same issue, columnist Sener Levent reports, inter alia, the following in his column in Turkish Cypriot Afrika newspaper (16.09.15):
“[…] According to what it is said, 40-50 missing persons exist there. The excavations are continuing. Every time this news is given to the media, a sentence is especially emphasized. It has certainly drawn your attention as well. It is said: ‘An attempt had been made for the corpses of around 40-50 Greek Cypriots who died in the clashes in 1974 to be given to the south Cyprus authorities with trucks through the United Nations from Ledra Palace, but when they were rejected they were buried in the area behind the prisons after waiting for one night’.
Look what happened. They killed them. They delivered the corpses, but the Greek Cypriots did not take them, they say! Have such things also happened in the war? Have they been given to the other side without anything in return? And if this is true and the Greek Cypriots rejected to take their dead, many questions are created in my head. Let us say that you really gave them and the Greek Cypriots refused to take them gentlemen. What did you do afterwards? You took them and you buried them in the area behind the prisons, did you not? It means that you knew that a mass grave exists there. Denktas also knew, all of you knew. Then, why have you not said it for so long? Why have you remained silent until today? Should this mass grave not be one of the first mass graves opened as regards the missing persons who are subject to official act? What kind of an excuse is that ‘we gave them, but the Greek Cypriots did not take them?’ Do you want to say that ‘we were forced to bury them in a mass grave? Where else have you done such a thing?