The government’s dedication to the sensitive and humanitarian issue of the missing persons is a fact, as well its continued efforts to locate the remains of the 776 persons still missing, pledged Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Interior, Costas Constantinou.
He was speaking during the funeral service on Saturday of another Greek Cypriot missing from the period of 1963-1964.Andreas Ioannides was buried in his village of Agios Ioannis Pitsilias following the location of his remains in a mass grave. Aged 31, he disappeared after going to Limassol for work at the Turkish Cypriot community on 26 May 1964. His remains were located in a mass grave at the Turkish Cypriot village of Hamit Mandres, north of Nicosia.
In a eulogy, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Interior, Costas Constantinou at Ioannides’ village, said the missing Greek Cypriot was brutally murdered, something which depicts the violence and tragic reality of the war, where during an unsuspecting time people’s lives were changed to their core, turning the simple carefree routine into unspeakable pain full of dramatic consequences.
From the moment he was arrested until he was cold bloodily executed, Andreas Ioannides was tortured in the hands of his capturers. He had the same fate with another 44 Greek Cypriots who also disappeared during the same period, Constantinou said.
“Today, 48 years later, we continue to live in a divided country and to fight for a fair and viable solution to the Cyprus problem”, Constantinou added.
The government, he added, is making every effort with good will to resume a constructive dialogue on the basis of confidence building measures, through which the concerns of both sides will be discussed to achieve progress and a prospect for a solution of our national issue.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied the island’s northern third.
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.
Source: Cyprus News Agency