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The Head of Humanitarian Affairs of the Cypriot Presidency, Anna Aristotelous, speaking to protothema.gr, revealed tragic aspects of the drama of the families of the missing during the Turkish invasion of 1974.
Anna Aristotelous expressed her shock from visits to the homes of relatives of the missing in Greece when she went to inform them of the identification of the bones of their loved ones, who were killed in Cyprus in 1974. Soon, as she said, there will be repatriation of bones and their transfer to Greece with military honors, for funerals half a century later.
“Do not change the number”
Anna Aristotelous referred to a recent visit she made to a village outside Thessaloniki to inform the family of a missing soldier about the identification of his bones. She told protothema.gr:
“We went to inform the family, and the sister of the missing soldier told us that their grieving mother had asked all family members, no matter how many years passed, not to change the landline telephone number at their home as one day it would ring to bring news about her son who was lost in the invasion. After 50 years, the phone rang from our agency to inform her about the fate of her son, but the mother had passed away without ever knowing what happened to her child. We wanted to inform her that we identified a small bone, but the whole body was not found, because the Turks likely moved bones from the original burial site. There are cases where we give families a phalanx of a finger to hold a funeral”.
(Anna Aristotelous)
They buried the wrong bones
During the period 1979-1981, as stated by the Head of Humanitarian Affairs of Missing and Enclaved Persons of Cyprus, it was found that wrong bones were given to families of the missing in Greece. That is, there were cases where bones from two or three different individuals were given, and in some cases, there were no bones of the person they buried at all!
Some of the bones could not be identified because some military personnel thought it was a good idea to spray them with chemicals to bleach them and remove the odor. Thus, they destroyed the genetic material, making identification impossible.
In two to three months, a special machine is expected to be purchased by the Institute of Neurology and Genetics of Cyprus, which, using the method of mass parallel sequencing, will be able to provide some results. This method will provide a percentage of identification but not the internationally accepted one, which is 99.95%. Depending on the results, as Ms. Aristotelous said, further research will be conducted, and the handling will be decided.
They will ask families to return the bones
Families to whom bones were given in Greece reach a total of 45, but 8 of them refused to return the bones for identification. This refusal prevents the identification of others besides the 8 missing persons, as it has been reported that bones from two or even three different individuals have been buried in some cases.
Anna Aristotelous, Head of Humanitarian Affairs for Missing Persons and Detainees, in collaboration with the Greek Army General Staff, will visit the families, noting that there is no need to return the bones, as samples can be taken from the burial sites for identification.
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There are still 47 soldiers missing from Greece
Excavations are being carried out for the ELDYK (Greek Force in Cyprus) soldiers outside the former camp in the occupied village of Gerolakkos.
The fallen officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers from Greece during the 1974 invasion totaled 99. There were also 77 missing, of whom 30 have been identified, and the remains of the remaining 47 are still sought.
The fate of 49% of the missing is unknown
Mrs. Aristotelous reported to protothema.gr that in the last month, there have been 6 identifications of remains, based on information provided by citizens who were aware of certain events.
In the last 8 months, 16 cases of missing persons have been located or identified. With these 16, the number of missing persons from 1974 has been reduced to 776. However, the fate of 49% of the missing from 1974 remains unknown to this day.
Information reaching Ms. Aristotelous’s office concerning missing persons whose remains may be located in the occupied territories is transmitted through the Greek Cypriot representative to the CMP (Committee on Missing Persons), which has the right to conduct investigations. However, the occupation Turkish regime creates problems as it designates many areas where mass graves existed as “military” and does not allow excavations. A laborious process is needed to declassify parts of these areas to allow for excavations.
In several cases, it has been found that Turkish occupation authorities moved remains from mass graves to other areas to avoid detection. However, there always remain some clues from small bones that prove this practice of covering up crimes from 1974.
Locating many missing persons would be particularly easy if Turkey provided information from its army archives, which contain many details about the locations of mass graves.
Out of the 1,619 missing from 1974, 619 were civilian citizens, while the remaining 1,000 were officers, non-commissioned officers, reservists, and volunteers, with the youngest being a 17-year-old volunteer.
There were 36 missing children, of which 20 have been identified. The youngest among them was only 6 months old.
