Another 12 missing persons identified

TWELVE MORE missing persons have been identified by the bicommunal team of scientists working on the exhumation, identification and return of missing persons across Cyprus.

Greek and Turkish Cypriot anthropologists and geneticists working under the supervision of an Argentinean team notified the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) of the 12 new identifications yesterday, which in turn informed the families concerned. The new identifications bring the total number of missing persons identified by the CMP up to 83 since its inception 27 years ago. According to a CMP press release, new identifications are expected in the weeks to come.

The CMP extended its condolences to the families concerned, expressing the hope that “despite the sorrow they will undoubtedly experience, some peace may eventually be found after so many years of painful uncertainty”.

A total of 1,912 Greek and Turkish Cypriots are still registered missing as a result of intercommunal violence in the 1960s and the Turkish invasion of 1974. The CMP was created in 1981 to establish their fate but was unable to make any progress until last summer when the remains of missing people were first identified and returned to their families for proper burial. After decades of stalemate in the search for the missing, progress is finally being made. There are now around 400 bodies recently unearthed that await identification.

Meanwhile, exhumations continue to be carried out island-wide by Cypriot archeologists and anthropologists of the CMP bi-communal team. One team is working in Gerasa on the search for remains of Turkish Cypriot missing, while two teams are working in Kyrenia and in the Mesaoria plain on the search for Greek Cypriot missing persons. Exhumation work was also carried out recently in the region of the Karpasia.

The CMP mandate is limited to establishing the fate of the missing, and not to investigating the cause of death or attributing responsibility for their death. It remains one of the only functioning and institutionalised bicommunal organs in Cyprus.

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.