THE AMERICAN mother of a Greek Cypriot missing since 1974 has filed an application against Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights.
This will be the first time a US citizen will be involved in taking Turkey to a European Court over its violations of Human Rights.
Nine similar cases brought by Greek Cypriots are already pending before the European Court. There are 1,619 people, including five US citizen, officially listed as missing by the Greek Cypriot side.
Helen Karefyllides, a US citizen, and her daughter Maria Ioannou filed their application a week ago after years of trying to ascertain the fate of Christos Karefyllides.
The two women told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) they realised the process ahead would not be easy.
“Our one and only demand is a humanitarian one. It is a simple demand for the full restoration and respect of the basic human rights of my missing brother and us,” Ioannou said.
“Turkey will be obliged to account for my brother’s fate only through justice and will have to produce evidence and facts as to his whereabouts.”
Christos was last seen by his mother on Sunday July 21 1974 before being assigned to fight invading Turkish troops in the Kyrenia district.
Having fought in the battle near Ayios Georghios five kilometres west of Kyrenia, and after the fall of the town, Christos made his way with others to Bellapais and Kythrea, where he received treatment for his wounds.
He then headed to Pachiamos some 12 kilometres east of Kyrenia to take up position there against the Turks. After that, the family has no further reports.
Later, it was established that Christos’s name was included in a Red Cross list of seven people established as having been captured by Turkish soldiers 15 kilometres north of Nicosia. The other six people on the list returned home after hostilities ceased.
CNA said repeated appeals by the family to the UN and the Red Cross on this piece of information had come to nothing, while an appeal to the American embassy in Nicosia has also fallen on deaf ears.
Ioannou has described her brother’s case as a “crime which must be rectified”. She said she was aware of the long process ahead, but felt she was doing the right thing because “the agony is much worse than the bitter truth”.
The United States last year concluded in a report that the five American citizens list as missing were in fact dead. In one case, DNA testing on remains uncovered in the occupied areas helped to identify Andreas Kasapis, who was 16 when he disappeared in 1974.
The Americans have concluded that the other four, three of whom would now be over 90 years old and one 84, can be presumed dead, probably killed by Turkish Cypriot militia.
The Greek Cypriot side, however, is concerned that the approach adopted by the US might be extended to the missing issue in general.
The government has repeatedly said it will not accept that any of the missing are dead without a positive identification on their remains.
Files on the whereabouts of the suspected remains of some 400 Greek Cypriots and 200 of 803 Turkish Cypriots missing were exchanged between the two sides at a meeting a year ago this month in line with an agreement between the two leaders in July 1997.
The procedure collapsed in the middle of 1998 after the two sides failed to agree on the next step.
