By a Staff Reporter
EXHUMATIONS at the Constantinos and Eleni cemetery have uncovered the remains of a 15-year old Greek Cypriot girl who died in 1974 while taking water to some national guardsmen in the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita.
The girl, Vasso Socratous, was one of five children born to George and Kalliopi Socratous, who are now in their seventies. The family lived in Omorphita, an area of heavy fighting in July 1974; most of the suburb is now under Turkish occupation.
During the hostilities, Vasso was caught in line of fire and took cover with her mother and two sisters in an abandoned house, where other women from the neighbourhood had also taken refuge.
In the evening of July 20, they made their way home. At around 5am, they began gathering food and water to help the soldiers in an adjacent lookout post. Kalliopi was in one room and Vasso in another when the mortar shell hit the house killing the 15-year old.
The girl’s father told Politis newspaper that the soldiers came and took Vasso’s body to the Nicosia General Hospital but it was too late to save her. The family left her name and address on the body and fled to safety in Xylotymbou.
However, when Vasso’s father retuned to Nicosia to claim his daughter’s body he was told she had probably been buried along with other victims at the Constantinos and Eleni cemetery.
The remains of hundreds of national guardsmen as well as civilians on the missing persons list have been exhumed at two Nicosia cemeteries over the past two years. The remains are taken to a special facility in Nicosia, where DNA testing is carried out and the remains then returned to the families for burial.
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.
