Funeral for Sharm victims

SEVEN Cypriot holidaymakers killed in a minibus crash in Sharm el-Sheikh last Friday were buried yesterday.

Seven Cypriots were killed and three were injured when a minibus travelling at high speed from St Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai to Sharm el-Sheikh crashed.

Yesterday, the tiny village of Nea Dilemma in the Paphos district laid to rest 35-year-old Demos Paisiou, his 28-year-old wife Eliada and their two children Marios, two, and Stella, eight. They are survived by the remaining children Christos, Giorgos and Chrystalla, who were all injured in the accident.

Also buried yesterday were Andreas and Androulla Miltiadous from Nicosia, aged 48 and 44, and CyBC employee Maria Demetriou, 43, who was buried in Parekklisia.

The Egyptian ambassador to Cyprus, Mohamed Ibrahem Abdel Hakam, has assured the Cyprus government that those responsible for the death of the Cypriot passengers would not go unpunished.

“The driver of that minibus is currently in remand in Egypt and will be punished severely because our laws are a lot stricter than European laws. It was a very tragic event and we feel great sadness because the Egyptian people and the Cypriot people have a very good relationship as do the governments of the two nations.”

The Journalists’ Union yesterday criticised some television channels for their coverage of mourning relatives of the victims, not only in the Sharm el-Sheikh crash, but also in the Helios Airways disaster.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.