Cyprus Families Grieve Missing Loved Ones at Last

NICOSIA—Three decades after Hussein and Christos went missing in the bloodshed that ripped Cyprus apart, their sons can finally grieve.

Both were non combatants who died on opposing sides in the war of 1974, yet it has taken 33 years for their families to know that beyond a shadow of doubt.

Grief has transcended ethnic divisions on this partitioned Mediterranean island for 28 families whose relatives have finally been pronounced dead after their bodies were found in reopened mass graves, in the first positive identifications of a war which left deep scars here.

"Before last Monday he was missing, presumed dead. Now it is `dead', and that cycle of uncertainty we had before has closed. There is a sense of finality to it," said Spyros Hadjinicolaou.

His father, Christos, a judge, was taken from his home by Turkish forces in 1974. His family never saw him again, though eyewitness accounts placed him at a prisoner of war camp.

"We had more or less expected it," said Hadjinicolaou, who was 5 when his father disappeared.

Similar sentiments were expressed by Kutred Ozersay, barely out of infancy when his own father Hussein Dildar was snatched by Greek Cypriots.

"On the one hand it's very disturbing. Since my childhood, we have regarded him as dead. Now it is like he is dying all over again," Ozersay said.

Some 2,000 people are missing from the Turkish invasion which followed a brief Greek-inspired coup in 1974 and fighting between Greek and Turkish Cypriots years before that.

It was the most emotive of issues separating the two sides, yet in an otherwise bleak outlook for a political settlement, the only one on which mediators have made any progress.

Exhumations

After much cajoling, both sides last year agreed to speed up exhumations from suspected mass graves. And with more people now willing to talk about the atrocities of decades ago, it led to discoveries in areas ranging from building sites to allotments in posh suburbs on the outskirts of Nicosia.

Some 303 individuals have been discovered so far.

On July 3, fifteen Greek Cypriot and thirteen Turkish Cypriot families got final word that remains had been found. Most relatives have contributed to a DNA bank, which is matching samples to the remains recovered.

"We are trying to help relatives achieve some closure on the uncertainty on what happened to their loved ones," said Swiss diplomat Christophe Girod, head of the U.N. backed Committee for Missing Persons, which is investigating the fate of missing persons in Cyprus.

For some of the families, it stamped out even the smallest vestige of hope that their relative would some day come back.

"I have an acquaintance whose father was positively identified. His mother is absolutely devastated. It's like it hits you right then," said Nicos Theodossiou, head of the Greek Cypriot committee representing relatives of missing persons.

Ozersay's father was rounded up with another 12 Turkish Cypriot men and boys in July 1974 by Greek Cypriots bent on exacting revenge for the Turkish invasion. They were found in a mass grave.

Turkish Cypriots plan to re-bury the group together, but this time with some dignity. "They were shot, and then shoved into the ground by a mechanical digger. That is not a burial. Now we can do it according to our religion and tradition."

Hadjinicolaou says he has hazy recollections of his father, who was found in a mass grave with other Greek Cypriots. He appears surprisingly calm.

"Right now we are thinking about how to do the funeral, now we will have a grave to place a flower on," he said.

Girod says grieving is part of the healing process. "We know that at these times for families, it is hard to digest that their loved ones are actually dead. There will be tears and emotions, that is normal, but in the long term it will achieve closure."