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Progress is being made in the work of the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP), after a period of stagnation, as was noted during the meeting with the Parliamentary Committee on Refugees at the headquarters of the Greek Cypriot CMP Office in Nicosia.
As members of the ICRC team explained during the extensive presentation, the investigation process is both time-consuming and complex, but with the use of modern technology progress has been made recently.
During the meeting, the members of the Parliamentary Committee were informed of the difficulties encountered by the CMP team during the investigation, both in gathering and recording evidence to identify burial sites, and in determining the circumstances of the victim's disappearance and the profile of the perpetrator in each case, by cross-referencing the data through the Turkish Cypriot CMP Office and finally the geographical mapping of the sites resulting from the above process.
Factors that complicate the CMP's work include the presence of military installations in several areas of occupied Cyprus, the construction of buildings whose owners are often slow to give consent for excavations, or the development of green spaces and forests, since it seems to have been common practice to plant areas where burials had taken place.
The representative of the Greek Cypriot Community in the CMP, Leonidas Pantelidis, confirmed after the meeting that "there is indeed an effort to intensify the investigations, because we are pressed for time and we have many more people missing". Modern technology is being used to speed up the investigations and for this purpose there is cooperation with American experts, who will return with new equipment in early summer.
As Pantelidis said, the Americans will bring "different machines this time, so that the new technology can be tested and we can see what from where there are can help and we hope that they will bring us systems that will solve different problems." As mentioned during the meeting, much progress has also been made in digitizing all the data available to the CMP, as the pandemic period was utilized for this purpose.
"Right now we have seven crews working feverishly, we have a basket of cases that have gone through member approval and are being excavated," he added. Finally, Leonidas Pantelidis explained that the CMP office in Nicosia remains open for families who want to know about developments in the case of their relatives.
Finally, Leonidas Pantelidis explained that the CMP office in Nicosia remains open for families who want to know about developments in the case of their relatives. He added that it would be good if the Parliament's Refugee Committee could be regularly informed by the CMP through such meetings.
In statements after the meeting, the Chairman of the Committee and AKEL MP Nikos Kettiros said that "according to the data before the CMP, there are currently 770 Greek Cypriots and about 200 Turkish Cypriots being searched in the occupied and free areas."
In a statement after the meeting, the Chairman of the Committee and AKEL MP Nikos Kettiros said that "according to the data before the CMP, there are currently 770 Greek Cypriots and about 200 Turkish Cypriots being searched in the occupied and free areas.
As Mr. Kettiros said, from the development of the investigations, several facts emerge, but it is not legitimate to make them public, both to preserve the progress of the investigations and for reasons of sensitivity towards the families who are anxious to locate their relatives.
"It seems that things have come unstuck, because at one point we were in a prolonged stalemate, and hopefully in the very near future there will be announcements about areas where remains will be located, about people who went missing either in 1974 or in previous years when there were riots," he added.
Regarding the issue of the 2,500 small bones in the CMP laboratory that have not been identified, Kettiros said some progress has been made and some answers are expected soon. He assured that the issue will be brought up again at a meeting of the Refugee Committee.
Nikos Kettiros thanked Leonidas Pantelidis and his team for the work being done and assured that the Refugee Committee is ready to assist, if necessary, at the legislative level.
Source: CNA
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