HUNDREDS of Turkish Cypriots, including Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash’s son Serdar and opposition CTP leader Mehmet Ali Talat, yesterday gave blood in the search for a suitable bone-marrow donor to save a Greek Cypriot child.
The Turkish Cypriots made their donations at the Ledra Palace in Nicosia.
The Turkish Cypriot effort, held under the auspices of the United Nations and with the help of Doctors of the World and other experts, began at 5pm and was expected to continue until 8pm.
Denktash and Talat said it had been a humanitarian effort that should not be used politically.
Talat also apologised to the Turkish Cypriots for being held up at the checkpoint for 15 minutes. CyBC reported that the Turkish Cypriots had been made to fill out forms before being allowed to cross.
An elderly Turkish Cypriot man told CyBC his grandson had been saved after being operated on at Nicosia’s general hospital after suffering from a brain tumour and that he felt it was his duty to make a donation.
The man, who was not named, said he had been disappointed after being turned away due to his age.
The volunteers also included Turkish nationals studying at universities in the north.
With thousands of samples already gathered, the Karaiskakio Foundation yesterday began using new machinery to process the blood.
State-of-the-art processing machinery began processing 1,000 samples a day, the first time a single laboratory anywhere in the world has tested so many samples at a time.
Government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou yesterday confirmed that Turkey had put its donor files at the government’s disposal in the search for a donor for six-year-old Andreas Vassiliou, the child whose plight sparked the flood of volunteers.
Greek Cypriot efforts have been accompanied by donations in Greece and, more recently, from Turkish Cypriots.
Papapetrou told his daily briefing that the Foreign Ministers of Greece and Turkey had spoken on the phone with the sole reason of trying to find a donor for Vassiliou.
"There was communication between (Greek Foreign Minister George) Papandreou and (Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail) Cem… The latter offered, for the specific case of the child that requires a donor, all the records that the Turkish Republic has."
The government spokesman said the effort to find a donor had overcome the island’s division, proving that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could live together.
"Every response to this humanitarian issue is positive, we see ordinary Turkish Cypriots’ response to this humanitarian call as very positive… It has superseded separation and segregation and showed… that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not only be the citizens of the same state but act as such."
Papapetrou said a bicommunal event in Pergamos on Sunday, in which hundreds of Turkish Cypriots gave blood, was very positive and a sign that the Cyprus problem climate was improving.
Papapetrou said that the Republic’s bone-marrow donor database had also been put at the disposal of experts trying to find a suitable donor for 12-year-old Turkish Cypriot Kemal Saracoglu, who is also suffering from leukaemia.
"I want to say that our files are offered for every people and more so for our Turkish Cypriot compatriots."
The president of the Karaiskakio’s scientific committee, Adamos Adamou, said yesterday the samples’ processing had begun smoothly. "The timetable was honoured and on Sunday the machines were here along with the experts, a German and an American."
Adamou said 2,000 samples would be sent to Los Angeles tomorrow for testing.
He added the government had so far honoured its financial promises to the Foundation.
But he added that financial donations were welcomed to cover operational costs, which the Karaiskakio paid for itself.
Meanwhile Greek and Turkish Cypriot diaspora associations in Australia said yesterday they were joining the effort to find matching donors for Andreas and Kemal.
