Despite our efforts, over 750 or our compatriots remain missing since the Turkish invasion of 1974 and the 194-64 period, Presidential Commissioner, Photis Photiou said on Tuesday.
Speaking during a meeting with high school students and teachers in Nicosia, Photiou noted that the families of the missing persons continue to experience the pain of not knowing the fate of their beloved persons, and Turkey should not be allowed to continue this brutal and inhumane treatment of the families.
He noted that while the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) project for the exhumation, identification, and return of remains of the missing persons has been going on for more than 17 years, however the fate of more than 750 missing persons remains unknown, a number that represents 50% of the cases reported to the Committee.
Photiou said that the occupation army continues not to allow access to its archives, where, as he noted “there is for sure information about the missing persons as well as information about the serious case related to the on purpose relocation of remains from the initial burial sites to other areas which remain unknown to us.”
He noted that this relocation aimed at concealing the guilt and the truth about the massive killings of people who were captured and killed in cold blood. Moreover he said that due to this barbaric policy many families of missing persons receive just one or some bones of their beloved ones for burial, stressing that this is inhumane and unacceptable.
The Presidential Commissioner said that there are also other serious reasons that the desired progress in resolving the issue of missing persons has not been achieved as for example the refusal of the occupation troops for many years to allow in an unhindered way excavations in places within the so called military zones in the occupied areas and the refusal of Turkey to indicate the massive graves where people that were collected from the battle fields were burred.
Photiou underlined that “on our part, despite Turkey’s refusal to cooperate and the obstacles and difficulties that it continuously creates we are not complacent and we will not give in to the schemes of the occupation force to bring this issue to an end without establishing the fate of each missing person”.
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