It is our duty to continue the struggle to locate all the persons that went missing during the Turkish invasion in 1974, Head of Humanitarian Affairs for the Missing Persons and the Enclaved, Anna Aristotelous, said on Sunday.
In her eulogy at the funeral of Yiannakis Charalambous, who fell during the Turkish invasion of 1974, she said that his remains were identified with the DNA method.
Noting that on the day of the invasion the Turkish warplanes, which were flying over Nicosia, bombarded without any hesitation, the Athalassa Hospital, she said that “it’s the day Attila showed its true barbaric face, bombing a hospital, spreading havoc, pain and destruction.”
One of the bombs, she said, hit a central ward and killed 33 people, among them 29 year old Yiannakis, “one of the 33 innocent victims of Turkish brutality.”
They were buried casually, she added, in the craters created by the bombings, without any proper ceremony.
She said that a few years ago the exact site of their burial was located, and his remains were identified with the DNA method.
“He was unfortunately destined, at the age of 29, to lose his life in the most tragic way, in the place where he was to receive protection and care”, she continued.
Referring to the relatives of the missing, Aristotelous stressed that “it is the state’s duty not to forget and its obligation to continue the struggle to locate all our missing persons.”
“And that is exactly what we do. Revealing the truth is the inalienable right of the relatives and the only consolation,” she concluded.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied 37% of its territory. Since then, the fate of hundreds of people remains unknown.
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