By Anthony O. Miller
MYSTERY surrounds what was really in – and what became of the contents of – ten 40-foot containers allegedly “full” of some 390,000 items of new clothing, which Cypriots had expected to be shipped to Honduras along with other hurricane-relief donations.
Carrie Hutton of Nicosia said the Honduran relief effort she was helping to organise had been donated the 10 containers of “new clothing” by an anonymous merchant. So when she left for Honduras on November 27, to join the relief effort there, she was hopeful others in Cyprus C.A.R.E. (Central American Relief Effort) would help with shipping the containers to storm- ravaged Honduras.
But when she returned to Cyprus on Wednesday, she learned that, instead of having been shipped to Honduras, the 10 containers’ contents had been destroyed on the donor’s orders under Customs Department supervision.
“I was really shocked, very upset,” Hutton told the Cyprus Mail. She said she got various stories as to why the “clothing” had been destroyed, including that the containers really held only “rags”.
Hutton said Erecleos Economides, of Cyprian Seaways Agency shippers, had told her, “it was a good thing that the stuff didn’t go (to Honduras), because it was in such tatters.”
“He said out of 100 boxes, maybe two or three could have been used. I think perhaps we have to cut our losses on that, but the point is that all the containers should have been opened… and sorted through.” They were not, she said she was told.
Hutton said she was now asking local medicine manufacturers if they were willing to fill the other half of the 40-foot container that C.A.R.E. has been packing with collected clothing and food, “because we’ve got 20 feet full” and a big hole in the group’s relief plans with the clothing’s destruction.
Economides also told the Cyprus Mail the containers held “mostly rubbish… not worth sending. They had to be destroyed. The goods came here in transit from Pakistan, I think. It was rags. It was rags. It was a front. It was a front,” he said.
But he dismissed suggestions the “rags” were “a front” for smuggling drugs. “No, I don’t think so. Maybe the people wanted to get rid of these garments from their country to get some rebates they give for exports, something like this.”
Demetris Panayiotou, of D&K Panayiotou Clearing and Forwarding company of Limassol, told the Cyprus Mail two different stories as to what the containers held: “It was ready-made garments. T-shirts, shirts, trousers.”
“It was brand new clothes… It was good stuff. Yes. It was good stuff, and the (Vati dump) people who destroyed (it) took some pieces. They took around 10 to 15 pieces, each one. It was good stuff,” he said early yesterday.
Then last night Panayiotou changed his story, insisting “in each container, we found there are only two cartons of T-shirts… and the rest of the cartons were textiles (rags), not ready-made garments.”
“They took them to Vati (dump) outside Limassol, and they cut… the T- shirts with scissors,” he said, adding: “And I said ‘It’s a shame to throw them away’ and they cut them one by one.”
“There were some people in the dump looking for some good things to wear, and I asked the Customs agents if they could have a T-Shirt, and the Customs refused to give them any,” he said.
“And I asked them why they did not call Nicosia for permission to deliver even these two cartons (of good clothes) to poor people, and they said they cannot. Only with the permission of Customs could they do so.”
Demetris Hadjicostis, chief investigative officer for the Customs Department assured the Cyprus Mail: “I will investigate the matter definitely… I want to look personally into the issue… We’ll fully investigate it.”
