A MINOR one-hour delay at their shop may have saved a family of four from death or injury when an army shell exploded near their holiday home, spraying shrapnel outside and inside the prefabricated construction.
The defence ministry yesterday suspended the officer overseeing a heavy weapons live fire exercise at the Kalo Chorio range on Wednesday during which a mortar shell strayed off course and exploded near the house — located some 800 metres from the main residential area of the village of Ayia Anna in the Larnaca district.
Angelos Efrem, his wife and two children aged one and two-years-old, who stay at the prefab house every Wednesday afternoon, and on weekends, had been delayed and arrived an hour after the explosion.
“I was delayed by some customers at the shop,” said Efrem. “Fortunately we were not here. From what I saw, we would have had deaths if we were inside.”
Efrem said shrapnel from the 1.30 pm explosion ripped through one side of the house and exited the other while windows were shattered.
“They perforated the roof, the walls. My demand is clear; I want the house as it was before,” Efrem said.
The incident has renewed calls by residents of the area for measures to be taken regarding the Kalo Horio firing range as this is not the first time a shell goes astray near their homes.
Last year, residents interrupted military exercises in the range after a similar incident.
Kyriacos Pasiourtidis, the head of the Ayia Anna community said they were gravely concerned and would seek a meeting with the defence minister to discuss the matter.
The head of the Pyrga community, which also lies north of the range, said the incident just confirmed their fears.
“It is clearly by chance that we have not mourned any victims so far. I am afraid one it will happen and only then the authorities will find solutions for the firing range,” Christakis Constantinou told state radio.
He said every time the residents hear the same things from the officials and every two to three months a shell lands in their communities.
“So far it was Pyrga. Today it seems that the problem is getting worse with other communities put at risk,” Constantinou said.
He said the whole area was at risk daily and the only excuse officials could find was that the National Guard has to conduct exercises.
“We protest that they will kill us and we are accused of creating problems for the National Guard,” he said.
Constantinou was also certain about the response they would get from the defence ministry.
“We will investigate matter and it will not happen again. And two, three months later we will have the same situation if not worse,” he said.
Defence Minister Costas Papacostas said he has ordered an investigation into the “tragic mistake,” assuring that those responsible will be punished.
“I think it is time for those who make mistakes to pay,” Papacostas said.
The minister said the officer overseeing the exercise had been suspended and added that such mistakes were criminal.
In June last year, a stray shell sparked a fire threatening the historic Stavrovouni monastery while there were other instances in the past of munitions missing their targets and falling in or close to Pyrga.
A month later, some 100 residents from the villages Pyrga, Kalo Chorio, Ayia Anna and Klavdia – successfully interrupted a military exercise in protest.
And former MEP Marios Matsakis, a Pyrga resident himself, was arrested at around the same time for entering the range and destroying targets.
In 2008 a mortar shell exploded just 50 meters away from a cluster of houses in the village.
The defence ministry has rejected calls to stop exercises with long range weapons, saying there is no other place to train troops.
