By Jean Christou
THE exhumation of remains in unmarked graves will begin in the Spring to establish whether any of those buried there are on the list of missing persons.
The work will be led by a team of experts, according to Nicos Theodosiou, chairman of the Pancyprian Committee for the Relatives of the Missing.
He was speaking after a meeting yesterday with House President Spyros Kyprianou. “We are happy that the first practical step by the government is being taken,” Theodosiou said.
The Foreign Ministry later confirmed the move. A statement said that three experts had carried out on-site examinations at military cemeteries.
They also met Humanitarian Affairs Commissioner Takis Christopoulos, Attorney-general Alecos Markides and Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides.
“This is something that the relatives of the missing through this association have been waiting for for years. We hope that it carries on with the momentum which has begun so we can reach some convincing evidence for some of the families of the missing.”
The exhumation experts were to arrive on the island late last year to help establish the fate both of Turkish Cypriot missing persons and Greek Cypriots buried in unmarked graves in the free areas.
Last year two Greek Cypriot women began digging up graves at a Nicosia cemetery, convinced their husbands were buried there.
The two men were on the catalogue of 1,619 missing persons even though they were confirmed as dead.
Files on the whereabouts of some 400 Greek Cypriots and 200 of the 803 Turkish Cypriots missing were exchanged between the two sides at a meeting in January 1998 in line with an agreement between the two leaders which had been reached the previous July.
But though the agreement collapsed within the wider framework of a stalemate in the Cyprus problem, the Greek Cypriot side has said it is ready to proceed with the exhumation of the bodies.
After the remains are exhumed they will be DNA tested at the Institute of Neurology and Genetics which has been gathering data from relatives of the missing for its DNA bank for over a year.
After yesterday’s meeting, Kyprianou referred to the differences between the two committees for the relatives of the missing and the deadlock in negotiations for their proposed merger.
He said he would make one final effort to try to unite the two feuding committees. If their efforts fail to achieve progress, Kyprianou said he would have “no choice but to tell the Cypriot public why the two committees can’t unite”.
“Everyone has to get down to it and work for the missing issue because we don’t have the luxury to waste time arguing,” he said.
