Soldiers were killed by Turkish Cypriot ‘mujahedeen’

THE OUTCRY over the five Greek Cypriot National Guardsmen executed at the village of Tzaos continued yesterday, as media sources reported new details of how events unfolded.

Earlier this week, the remains of the guardsmen in the iconic black and white photograph that had become a symbol of the long battle to discover the fate of loved ones who went missing during the invasion were identified through the joint exhumation process, leading to new information to an outpouring of new information surrounding their death to make its way to the media.

According to Turkish photographer Ergiun Konuksever, who was interviewed by the Turkish aily Vatan, he took the photographs while working as a war correspondent in Cyprus during the 1974 invasion. In his interview, Konuksever said that his photographic equipment and the films in question, which were later developed by photographer Christos Yiangou, fell into the hands of the Greek Cypriots when he himself was taken prisoner after he was shot.

Konuksever reported that the soldiers were executed by Turkish Cypriot “mujahedeen” as he describes them, who shot the five guardsmen despite orders by an army general to take them and lock them up somewhere.

When the general demanded to know why they had shot the soldiers, the Turkish Cypriot fighters replied that the Greek Cypriots had killed members of their families and that they had been waiting for this moment for ages.

The latest revelations are unlikely to ease the political tension between the two sides in a week that has seen the government, political parties, deputies and refugees denouncing Turkey for war crimes, and calling for justice, something that angered the Turkish Cypriot side.

On Wednesday, the Turkish Cypriot side warned against politicising the missing persons issue, which both sides had agreed to make sure remained a humanitarian matter.

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.