A total of 20 femicides were carried out in Cyprus over the past three and a half years – most of them in 2019 by an infamous serial killer known as ‘Orestis’.
This is what Philenews reported on Wednesday citing police data which also records shows that, on average, five femicides take place annually in the Mediterranean island.
Early on Monday, the killing in Limassol of 82-year-old Giorgoulla Charalambous by her 84-year-old husband is the year’s first recorded murder.
Police spokesman Christos Andreou said that women were nine out of the record year’s total of 13 murder victims in 2019.
And that seven out of the nine femicides were victims of ‘Orestis’ – an army man whose victims also included two young girls. These were children of two women he had killed and buried in a lake by an abandoned mine in Mitsero.
In 2020, five women were murdered out of a total of 15 killings that year. And in in 2021, another five women were murdered out of 14 premeditated ones.
All homicides were committed by individuals who were spouses, ex-spouses or companions of the victims and the motive was personal differences.
