By Jean Christou
RELATIVES of the missing are outraged that crucial information on the fate of a 16-year-old whose death was only confirmed on Tuesday was in fact available all along.
It was only after this week’s identification of the remains of Zinon Zinonos, buried with hundreds of other people at a Nicosia cemetery in 1974, that another Greek Cypriot came forward with information.
Dr Nearchos Roussos, who was in the National Guard during the invasion, says he tended to Zinonos’ wounds when he was hit by a Turkish bullet in the Omorphita suburb of Nicosia on July 21, 1974.
Roussos said he had taken the 16-year-old to Nicosia General Hospital, where a doctor later informed him that the youth was dead.
He said he was never questioned by the authorities after the war, and had not realised until this week that the Zinonos on the list of 1,619 missing persons was the boy to whom he had tended.
For 25 years, Zinonos was listed as having last been seen in Omorphita after kissing his family goodbye.
Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou yesterday expressed shock and surprise over Roussos’ testimony, and said the government would be examining the issue.
“There is a political will for any grave to be opened where there is a question that there are people buried there whose identity we do not know,” he said.
But Nicos Theodosiou, co-chairman of the committee for relatives of missing persons told the Cyprus Mail he had a series of pressing questions for the government.
“I am absolutely angry,” he said. “It is completely ridiculous what that family had to go through when the information was there.”
Theodosiou conceded that when people were questioned after a war there were bound to be some gaps. “You can’t cover everything, but the question is how big a gap is excusable,” he said.
He said he expected the government’s stance would be that Zinonos was a volunteer and not a registered soldier, meaning army reports on the hostilities would have overlooked his case after the war.
“But this is not god enough for me,” Theodosiou said.
“If somebody knew, then it is not right. He was on the list of missing persons because we did not know this information. If I had known this, he would not have been on the list and his poor mother would not have been running around all these years at demonstrations.”
Roussos told the CyBC yesterday how he found Zinonos on the ground, mortally wounded by a Turkish bullet on July 21, 1974.
“I looked at his wound. It was a very small, but it was bleeding badly. I took my shirt off and made a bandage to stop the blood and put him on my shoulder to head for the hospital,” Roussos said.
He said the unit had notified an ambulance, which was on its way; but because of the fighting, nothing was sure, so Roussos, then 23, continued to carry the boy towards Nicosia when the ambulance met them at Vorios Polos.
Roussos said a nurse helped her put Zinonos into the ambulance and take him to the hospital. He said he gave the nurse details of the boy’s identity. Later a doctor told him that the youth had died.
Asked why he had not come forward before, Roussos said he had seen the name Zinonos on the missing list, but that the list said he had been arrested by the Turks.
“I never thought it was the same Zinonos until I heard it yesterday on television,” he said. “We had given his name to the ambulance. We knew his name.”
Theodosiou said relatives now wanted a new round of enquiries on whether anyone might have seen anything in 1974 that might confirm that missing persons are in fact dead.
“We believe it’s time for a new round of questioning by the government,” he said.
