President Nicos Anastasiades gave instructions to the government committee monitoring humanitarian issues to immediately process the request of a man who lost both his parents and his two sisters in the 2005 Helios crash, for financial assistance, it was announced on Tuesday.
The head of the committee, and cabinet secretary Theodosis Tsiolas said that following an open letter addressed to the president by Helios orphan Andreas Evripidou, he was instructed by the incumbent to handle the re-quest for financial assistance.
“The government deals with these issues and problems with maximum sensitivity and understanding,” Tsiolas said.
Evripidou saw the compensation he received for the deaths of his family after Helios Airways flight 522 crashed into a Greek mountain on the morning of August 14, 2005, killing all 121 people aboard, scalped along with all other deposits over €100,000 in the Bank of Cyprus and the former Laiki bank, as part of Cyprus’ bailout in March 2013.
“You have taken all the money I had… You’ve brought me back to zero,”
In the letter, circulated in the media, Evripidou, who was 19 when the accident occurred, identified himself “as one of the Helios orphans”.
“I know I might be unknown to you because I was hiding for almost 11, literally agonising years, especially of late where I live with depression and in misery,” the letter said.
“I had lost back then my parents and my two little sisters, my whole family was wiped out, and I was left alone,” Evripidou said. He added that he has been avoiding publicity because he didn’t want people to feel sorry for him but after 11 years he is forced to do the exact opposite as his previous pleas for help to the government have been ignored. “I just wanted to live as a human being but I am being deprived of this”.
“You have taken all the money I had… You’ve brought me back to zero,” Evripidou said. He added that the last few years he is, at times, without electricity and water and on the verge of anorexia nervosa.
“I have no family Mr President to support me or provide for me. I am the sole survivor of my family,” the letter said.
“Imagine,” he said, “losing in a day your family, and being left alone and unprotected, with no job, no money and without any family warmth.
“This is my world. Now I have reached a certain age where I would like to move on with my life. To get married and create a family which I believe will be my real healing, to be able to regain my happiness and find a little solace,” Evripidou said. “But I cannot do this because of financial issues”.
Instead, he said, “I am in danger of losing what I was left. I am struggling to survive in a harsh world and in a state which does not care”.
Tsiolas said that the committee, except from Evripidou’s case, is in cooperation with the state legal services to find a legal way of giving financial aid for humanitarian reasons to 11 underage Helios orphans.
