Yerolakkos refugee seeks to return to be buried

 

A GREEK Cypriot retired accountant and politician could become the first granted permission by Turkish Cypriot authorities to be buried in the north, it emerged this week.

Spyros Hadjigregoriou, 79, prior to 1974, Yerolakkos resident wrote to the United Nations for help in arranging his burial.

“In the letter I requested they use their good offices to get permission to bury me in the village,” Hadjigregoriou said.

The UN immediately forwarded his request to the Turkish Cypriot authorities who contacted Hadjigregoriou.

“I met with the Turkish Cypriot ‘foreign ministry’, and they asked me immediately for my personal views,” he said, adding: “they were very polite and they saw it as a human problem.”

Permission for the burial to go ahead has not yet been granted but according to Hadjigregoriou, the Turkish Cypriots were very sympathetic, and he remains optimistic about the request.

Asked if he knew of any others who had returned to their villages to be buried, he said: “I may be the first, but I don’t mind if I am not.”

According to Turkish Cypriot daily, Kibris Gazetesi, Hadjigregoriou took the steps to gain a burial place in one of Yerolakkos’ two churches after seeing how it grieved his sister to be unable to be buried in her home village.

A strong supporter of the Annan plan and leading member of the United Democrats party, Hadjigregoriou said: “If that plan was accepted then we would have been living in our villages. My elder sister is dying in a Nicosia hospital and her biggest sorrow is that she will not be buried in her hometown when she dies.”

According to Kibris, Yerolakkos’ village mukhtar has said he is ready to accept Hadjigregoriou’s request if permission is granted at a political level.

Situated just north west of Nicosia in the buffer zone, Yerolakkos was the site of fierce fighting during the 1974 invasion and is home to Nicosia International Airport, which remains under UN control.

 

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