There may be exhumation of remains of Assyrian missing persons believed to be buried in the former dog burying ground of occupied Dikomo, according to a preliminary study by a Portuguese technician, which the Parliamentary Committee on Refugees was briefed on Tuesday in a closed-door session. It was also reported that a more specific study is progressing with regard to timelines and costs for the exhumation project.
The meeting of the relevant Parliamentary Committee was attended by a representative of the Committee of Relatives of Missing Persons of Assia, who stressed that the new development in Ornithi with the identification of an unidentified person within the group make it imperative that all bones are examined.
The Refugee Committee discussed again the developments around the issue of determining the fate of the missing persons and in particular the new development in relation to the Ornithi area, where 70 Assyrians were executed and thrown into wells, as well as their subsequent transfer to a concrete pit in Dikomo.
As the members of the Refugee Committee were told, efforts have gradually begun to send to a laboratory, with which the Missing Persons' Committee (MMP) in America is cooperating, the 2,500 bones of the missing persons, which have remained for years in the Committee's warehouses, in order to identify them. It was also reported that there is a possibility that there are other missing persons in the CMP's coffins.
Poor results of the investigations
In a statement after the meeting, the Commissioner for the Presidency, Fotis Fotiou, expressed his concern about "the poor results" of the investigations, noting that "certainly the main reason for these results is the intransigent attitude of Turkey, which continues to take an inhuman view of the issue of the missing persons".
He said he has said many times that it has been scientifically established that most of the mass graves that have been identified and exhumed to date "have been deliberately interfered with by the Turkish army and the remains have been moved to places so far unknown to us."
He added that the Greek Cypriot side is currently searching for 750 Greek Cypriot missing persons, to note that "the vast majority of these missing persons are the result of these movements."
"I believe that this double crime is not the actions or initiatives of individuals. It was a conscious organized policy of the occupying power and this was done in order to destroy evidence and proof that would substantiate its crimes. It is no coincidence that the Turkish army stubbornly refuses to open its records and it is no coincidence that it does not want to assist the work of the CMP to locate these bones, which were moved from the original burial sites," the Presidential Commissioner stressed.
He described the issue of the Assyrian missing persons as tragic, adding that "it is a great crime, it was a massacre."
With regard to the movement of the Assyrian bones, he said that there was information from a Turkish Cypriot in 2019 that these bones had been moved to Dikomo, to the old concrete quarry which was at some stage restored with the assistance of the European Union.
He referred to the information that the Refugee Committee received both from him and from the representative of the CMP on the preliminary study carried out by the Portuguese technician.
Mr. Fotiou said that what emerges from the preliminary study is that this exhumation can be done and the Government wants it to be done, adding that they will continue with the second part, so that a more specific study can now be done, with timetables and costs, referring to the huge work that will be carried out to determine if the remains are really there.
On the request of the families of Assia to send to America, to the laboratory cooperating with the CMP, the 2,500 bones that were found during the exhumations in the two wells in Ornithi and did not receive the scientific examinations by the CMP, he said that "the Republic of Cyprus is willing to pay this cost, which was estimated at about 1 million, in order to complete this effort and make it a success.
He said that there were relatives who did not get completed bones or got some or few bones from their relatives, adding that through the identification of additional bones they would get more bones to proceed with funerals.
"Many Assyrians," he continued, "have not proceeded with funerals for this reason."
He also said that it is possible that new cases may arise in these bones, noting that it appears from some information that there are one or two cases of such missing persons.
"It is imperative for the CMP to send these bones and it is really with disappointment that we are informed that the Turkish Cypriot side is not consenting to the sending of the samples and you know very well that for there to be a decision in the CMP it has to be unanimous of all three members. So we have been informed today that the CMP will proceed to send these bones gradually. This is a small progress of course and we have to say this, they will be sent gradually," he said.
Finally, he assured the relatives of the missing persons that the Government, in cooperation with the Parliament, will intensify efforts to identify the burial sites that were reburied for the remains that were deliberately moved from mass burial sites by the Turkish army.
In addition, he said that they will continue to support financially and otherwise how the Missing Persons' Committee of Inquiry, adding that "this is a commitment, obligation and duty of the government and the state towards our heroes, but also towards their relatives."
Essentially unsolved crime in Ornithi, to examine all the bones
Speaking on the issue of moving the bones from Ornithi to Dikomo, the representative of the Committee of Relatives of Missing Persons of Assia, Yiannos Demetriou, said that the crime committed in Ornithi had many variations in its development, explaining that there was a group of 70 civilians, arrested in Assia on 21 August 1974, who were initially transferred to Pavlidis Garage.
He said that subsequently this group was executed in Ornithi and the murdered were thrown into two wells, with the exhumation taking place between 2008 and 2009 and being completed in early 2010.
"After the analysis of the bones was completed," he continued, "it was evident that the two graves had been moved in an organized manner. This was evident from the findings, i.e. there was a breach of the two wells. A small number of skeletons were found, which were in burrows, around 4 and the rest were fragments or small or fragments, a few thousand were small bones," Demetriou said.
He added that the CMP made an attempt with anthropological criteria to find skeletal elements, which belonged to different people. He also said that after this anthropological study was done, several samples were sent, where DNA analysis was done and from the findings 68 people were identified from the group, which was expected to be 70 people.
He noted that "there were at least two profiles that had remained unclear for years," adding that the Assiotes' relatives had insisted for many, many years in their meetings with the CMP that all the remains should undergo DNA analysis and be returned to the families so that they could fulfill their sacred duty of respect to their dead.
At the same time, they indicated that the Ornithi crime "remained essentially undetermined as to the number of people who may have been in it, since the identification of all 70 who were expected had not been completed, and there were two profiles which could not be attributed."
Demetriou said that "unfortunately, it took 10 years to prove that there was indeed an additional unknown person in that well," expressing sadness because relatives expected that this issue could have been dealt with much earlier.
He referred again to the case of Georgios Foris, whose family in 2015, went ahead with an examination of the bones attributed to her and found that she had been given bones of four different people.
"It was the only case that had been checked to confirm what each family was receiving. So the combination of the case of Georgios Foris and the new development in Ornithi with the discovery of an unknown person within the group make it imperative that all the bones are examined because it is very possible that there are other missing persons within the CMP's coffins," he said.
Investigations are not proceeding despite testimonies
Refugee Committee chairman Nikos Kettiros said there is an additional person or two in the group grave in Ornithi out of the 68 people identified.
He said the information was that the number of people buried in the mass grave was 70, noting that the one additional person that has been identified is in addition to the two that the CMP is looking for and may be one, two or three persons.
He clarified that the profile that has been found is not one of the two that the CMP was looking for.
In addition, he noted that relatives have complained to the Refugee Committee that there is information about Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots buried during 1964 and 1974 and the investigations have not proceeded, to add that this testimony is very serious, saying that it is unacceptable that information exists and has not been investigated.
With regard to the Dikomo dog dump, he said that the preliminary study by the Portuguese expert had been delivered, noting however that difficulties would continue and permission might have to be granted in order to proceed with the excavation in the dump.
DISY MP Rita Superman said her party stands unreservedly with the relatives of the missing persons, the Assyrians and all others who are going through this drama.
She did not want to comment on the procedures and how the services are working, nor did she want to give credit to anyone, as she said.
"They may be working very well, they may have developed the ways in which they find and identify perhaps missing persons, yet the drama of missing persons remains as it has been for 48 years now. You can't hand over to relatives a part of the body of their loved ones, you can't use a tread to say 'take this and bury yours' or a kneecap or something else. We are really crushed by what we have heard today," he said.
He stressed that the protocols must change, change the way and become more assertive, adding that we must all "raise our voices and not refer to numbers, statistics, equal distribution of T/C and E/C identifications and whatever other agreements are made."
Source: CNA
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