THE British government has finally launched an investigation into why more than 200 infants died at a hospital on the sovereign military base at Dhekelia in the early to mid-1960s.
The probe – long demanded by their now elderly parents – follows an investigation into the mystery by the Sunday Mail last year.
The absence of any official explanation for nearly half a century has led to intense speculation, ranging from sub-standard hygiene at Dheklia hospital to exposure at the base of military personnel to radio-active material.
Claims of a cover-up have been rife.
More than 56 babies, aged between one day and one month died during 1964 alone, some on the same date, and are buried in one small section of the dusty cemetery at Dhekelia.
Another row of babies’ graves nearby dates from 1963. At least ten died just in November that year. Nearby are dozens of other graves, marking deaths from 1965. In September that year at least eight babies died aged between just one and three days.
All were children of British servicemen.
The disclosure of the new investigation comes after one parent, whose child was stillborn in Dhekelia hospital in 1962, successfully lobbied his local MP in the UK to contact the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for answers to the mystery.
Mike Pitcher served in Cyprus with the RAF from 1961 to 1963. He told the Sunday Mail this week that within an hour of his child being stillborn, another mother in a nearby bed also gave birth to a dead child.
Several years lapsed before he realised that something unusual had happened. In 1999 he began a campaign with a letter to the British child rights activist, Esther Rantzen. Confirmation that a belated probe is underway came in a MoD letter prepared for Pitcher’s Liberal Democrat MP for North Norfolk, Norman Lamb. Dated September 8 2010, it stated:
“I can confirm that additional births data has now been obtained from the General Register Office which will be used to form further investigation over the child mortality rates.”
The letter added: “There had been some difficulty in locating some of the data required.”
The missive also discloses that a full enquiry is already underway and the MoD has told Lamb that he will be informed once the investigation is complete. It is expected to be concluded by the end of this year.
Bases authorities have been unable to give any definitive reason for the deaths, other than to conclude they were a symptom of high infant mortality in the early 1960s.
However, Pitcher believes that the cause could have been the inoculations that were given to all servicemen and women before they were posted to Cyprus.
“I don’t think we will ever find out the true cause, but in my own personal opinion it could have been the concoction of inoculations that caused it,” he said. Pitcher and his wife have since had three children.
Karen Salter, whose sister, Susan Michelle Hooton, died shortly after being born in 1967, welcomed the news yesterday. “I’m really pleased [about the investigation]. I really want to get to the bottom of this,” the 48-year-old said. Salter visits her sister’s grave every year.
“I think the parents of these children deserve an explanation.” she added. “Obviously this has been covered up, or we would have had an explanation for such a high infant mortality rate in such a small area.”
According to Pitcher there could have been many more stillborn babies who did not have headstones in the cemetery.
The British forces administration department say that their records do not go back before 1966. Local newspapers, medical records and historians have been unable to provide satisfactory answers.
The publication of the feature ‘Remembering Our Baby Girl’, which highlighted the mystery, in the Sunday Mail last October, prompted several dozen readers, many of whom are ex-British forces, to offer their own explanations.
“There was a large British Military Hospital at Dhekelia. The hospital had a very large maternity wing which catered for the wives of service personnel throughout the island and they were ‘bussed in’ from all corners for check-ups and subsequently their deliveries,” one reader wrote.
“When an infant died, the family was given the option of a local burial or UK burial (the latter at their own cost) — the military salary not being what it is today.”
A former serviceman wrote: “When I was Garrison Sergeant Major in the 1980s, I was told by a Greek lady who worked in the old hospital that the deaths were due to a polio epidemic.”
Other explanations point to the squalid state at the now-demolished Dhekelia hospital, “My children were born in B.M.H. Dhekelia; my daughter in November 1959 and my son in January 1961. While it is possible that some of the deaths were due to birth difficulties or defects, we believe that the majority of infant deaths were due to dysentery and dehydration,” wrote a resident of Limassol.
Hygiene standards at Dhekelia hospital were described as appalling by another mother, who gave birth to her son there in 1965.
Lower-ranking servicemen, she said, were brow-beaten by senior officers to ‘not to cause a fuss’.
“The deafening silence over all of these deaths speaks volumes, it is obvious something is not quite right, possibly a scandal?” wrote a former RAF serviceman.
The mystery has been the subject of intense speculation. Some theories suggest outbreaks of cholera, meningitis, or even typhoid were to blame.
Salter told the Sunday Mail that she had even heard speculation that the soldiers had been exposed to radioactive material during the posting.
“People are grasping at straws because they don’t have any solid information,” she said.
During the early 1960s, over 40,000 British forces personnel and their families were based on the island, with camps in Famagusta, Dhekelia, Troodos, Akrotiri and Agios Nikolaos.
Few of the graves have been visited recently. But after 45 years or more, many of the parents of these children, who left Cyprus decades ago, may no longer be alive.
