“The only bus station at Oikos village is at the entrance of the village and from there, the old village residents are forced to walk uphill until their home, something particularly difficult for them,” Chloe Pavlou, secretary of the community councils of Oikos and Gerakies said, describing to Phileleftheros one of the main problems of the few residents of the area.
“Most old people in the mountain areas have no family close by, and no support from the state either,” she added.
The issue was recently mentioned at the House Human Rights Committee by Ifigenia Katsi, president of the voluntary Organization of Social Policy and Action that serves the residents of the Marathasa area free.
As Ifigenia Katsi said, “in some cases, old people remained at the bus stops for hours because they did not have the strength to walk home nor someone to give them a ride.”
The community heads of the five communities of Marathasa confirmed to Phileleftheros the above and stressed that even though “reviving plans are announced by the state, unfortunately, these cannot be implemented in mountain areas and particularly in Marathasa which is far from Nicosia.”
The five officials said that “there is no care, no services by the state for the people of the area,” adding that “this situation aligns with the more general indifference of the state, the declining course of the region, and the absence of young people.”
They told Phileleftheros that “first of all the state must provide motives for the mountain areas so that working positions will be established for young people as well as education, health, and other services. One such motive is, for example, the reduced price of electricity and the reduced taxation for businesses on the mountains compared to the ones in urban areas.”
As they said, in some of the villages there is no supermarket, no community center for old people, and no banks, while due to the digitization of the bill payment system most of them have huge problems paying their bills.
