The Pancyprian Organisation of the Relatives of Undeclared Prisoners and Missing Persons has called on the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to renew efforts to establish the fate of all missing persons, who remain unaccounted for.
President of the Organisation Nicos Sergides and Vice President Ioannis Kolios met Friday the Special Representative of the Secretary General in Cyprus Lisa Buttenheim, and handed her a resolution for the Secretary General of the UN.
In the resolution the Organisation expresses deep concern because the humanitarian issue of the missing persons remains unsolved and invites the Secretary General to renew his efforts to establish the fate of all missing persons and the missing persons in Cyprus, with convincing evidence.
It also calls on the Secretary General to act in order for the Committee on Missing Persons to begin effective investigation into the fate of all missing Cypriots and ask everyone to give the CMP access to information concerning the missing.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. As a result of the invasion, 1619 Greek-Cypriots were listed as missing, most of whom soldiers or reservists, who were captured in the battlefield.
A further 41 more cases of Greek Cypriot missing persons were 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.
According to the CMP the total number of identifications has risen to 407 from 337 at the end of 2012, of which 83% or 333 were Greek Cypriots and 17% which corresponds to 17 identifications were Turkish Cypriots.
Since the beginning of the identification programme in 2006, 900 exhumations have been carried out until April 2013, which represents 45% of the total missing persons from both communities. So far excavations have been carried out at 738 sites, of which 479 or 65% bore no result whereas remains were located in 259 burial sites. Since the recommencement of the CMP programme last August, 1.351 samples have been genetically analysed which is 50% more than the samples analysed in the past seven years.
