Soldier stabbed in bayonet ‘game’

DEFENCE Minister Yiannakis Omirou yesterday ordered an investigation into an incident at a Larnaca National Guard camp in which a soldier was injured in the abdomen by a bayonet.

Nineteen-year-old Christos Christou, from Kalo Chorio outside Larnaca, was recovering in Larnaca hospital yesterday after undergoing emergency surgery late on Friday. His condition was yesterday described as stable.

Police said Christou was accidentally injured by a colleague’s bayonet as the two fooled around at the camp on Friday afternoon. The name of the other National Guardsman involved, who is being held by military police, has not been released.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.