On October 29, Cyprus commemorates the Day of its Missing Persons.
The date marks the day in 1974 when the exchange of prisoners following the Turkish invasion was completed.
In a message, the Office of the Commissioner of the Presidency said that since then, ”a new tragic period’ for the Greek Cypriots began, a period ”of anguish and search for the hundreds of our compatriots who never returned to their families and since then their fate is unknown.”
In its announcement, the Presidency urged the international community to take initiative to stop the ongoing tragedy of Cyprus’ missing persons.
“We expect civilised humanity, the United Nations, the European Union, but also the powerful of the earth to undertake humanitarian initiatives and contribute substantially and effectively to terminate the ongoing tragedy for the benefit of the missing persons’ families,” the announcement says.
Furthermore, it noted that Turkey is “responsible for creating the problem, but also for perpetuating it to this day with obstacles and tactics, still refuses to cooperate honestly to solve the problem.
“Turkey continues to defiantly and arrogantly disregard the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights as well as other international organisations.”
“On our part, we will intensify our efforts and continue with consistency and determination the struggle to ascertain the fate of the last missing person, whether they are a Greek Cypriot, a Greek or a Turkish Cypriot,” the press release concludes.
A Committee on Missing Persons has been established in Cyprus, after an agreement between the leaders of the two communities. It is responsible for 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 the Turkish invasion of 1974.
