TWELVE entire Cypriot families, including a family of four Armenian Cypriots, were wiped out in Sunday’s horrific air crash that killed 121 passengers and six crew members of the doomed Helios flight that went down north of Athens.
Among the dead were also six representatives of Libra Holidays, which owns Helios, a Greek Naval officer, a Greek Cypriot National Guard officer, and a Cyprus Airways employee.
The youngest victim was four years old. In all, 17 children under the age of 16 died in the crash. Three of the children, aged 16, 14 and five died along with their parents.
The oldest passengers were a couple aged 63 and 65.
Included in the six crew members who died was the daughter of Lonias Efthyvoulou, artist and brother of veteran journalist Alex Efthyvoulou, who was due to be married next month.
Few people in Cyprus did not know one of the victims, but places like Paralimni and Dhali lost more than most.
Sixteen resident of Paralimni died, half of them children.
Three entire families from the town were wiped out, including Christos Pyrillis 40, his wife Antonia, 36 and their three children Eva 12, Xenios 10 and Marcos six, who had gone on a week-long holiday.
Reports yesterday said Antonia had been worried about flying and had called her brother Andreas from the airport; he reassured her that she was flying with an EU airline and that it would be safe.
All day Monday and Tuesday, friends and neighbours gathered at the homes of the three bereaved families, while the town’s Mayor declared 40 days of mourning. He also said his municipality would cover the cost of the burials.
Another Cypriot family in Paralimni, who were visiting from Australia, left their 20-month old baby at home with its grandparents because it had a fever. The boy, George Xiourouppa, is now an orphan. His father Demos, 39, his mother Margarita, 34, and sisters Sophia, 10, and Joanna, nine, died in the crash. Reports said that Demos didn’t actually want to go on the trip but his daughters begged him.
“You don’t know what to do,” one resident in Paralimni told reporters. “If someone loses a grandparent or a mother or a father, you go round to their house and talk about the person who’s gone and you have a wake. But what are we supposed to do when we’ve lost whole families?”
One woman from Nicosia, who had not gone on the trip, lost her husband and three children, two boys and a girl aged 10, 8 and five.
