The war is a tragic event, composed of various tragedies τές The protagonists of each are the people… Those who filled with their own personal tragedies the pages of the bloodiest page of modern Cypriot history… of the Turkish invasion of 1974.
One of them concerns the case of Paraskevi Giorgalli from Engomi, Famagusta. A few days before she kissed the crowns at her daughter's wedding, she met death. He was killed along with two other women in the Strovilia area by Turkish soldiers and was buried a few days later in the Xylotympos cemetery.
According to Katerina's daughter in the newspaper "Phileleftheros", her mother had gone to her friend's house in Strovilia, because she was in the territory of the British Bases. Friday was alone. Her husband had died since 1958, while her two daughters lived elsewhere. So on the day the evil happened, no one was with her and no one was informed of her death.
For years her family did not know what happened or where she was. Until one day, one of her daughters, Katerina, as she said, met the man who saw her dead. Until then, no one had informed them. In the fire of war, even things that today just seem very difficult. Recently, they decided to search for their mother's grave, asking for the help of the Commission of Inquiry.
The story begins in the summer of 1974 with the murder of three women. They are Eleni Georgiou (Vorhi) from Strovilia, Paraskevou Giorgalli from Engomi Famagusta and Laura Ioannou from Strovilia.
According to the facts, as recorded in the Commission of Inquiry during the investigation, on August 16, Paraskevou Giorgalli, Laura Ioannou and Georgios Ioannou due to the advance of the Turks sought security in the house of Eleni Georgiou, which is located inside the British Bases.
Georgios Kyriakou together with Eleni Georgiou's husband, Georgios Thomas, left the house and went to Deryneia to secure food. When they returned to Strovilia, they found the three women dead and notified the Base Police. The British transported the bodies to the military hospital in Dhekelia. The body of Eleni Georgiou was received by her relatives and buried in Deryneia.
The family of Paraskevi Giorgalli went to the Commissioner's office a few years ago to conduct an investigation to locate their mother's burial site, of which they were unaware.
At the request of the family, the Presidency Commissioner contacted the Chief of Police, the High Commissioner of the United Kingdom and services to locate and evaluate all information to determine what happened to the bodies of the two women after they were taken to the English Hospital in Dhekelia.
Based on the information obtained, it was ascertained that after the autopsy, the bodies were handed over by the British to the Red Cross, which then handed them over to the Police, who transported them to the Xylotympos Cemetery, where they were buried. There is a relevant entry in the burial book of the village church.
After indicating the possible burial sites, the Commissioner instructed to carry out excavations and take skeletal samples for DNA testing purposes. This process has been completed and the results of the DNA tests are awaited.
Funeral under a carob tree
Father Kyriakos, a priest of Xylotympos, then took part in the burial of the two women. Not as a priest, but as a teenager who helped in the village church. "I was 14 years old in 1974. Our young man, at that time, had gone to the gas station of his son-in-law, who was a soldier in the invasion, but his gas station had been ordered," he told the newspaper "Phileleftheros". "He handed me the keys to the church and I was in his place.
On August 22, the Police informed us that they would bring two girls who were killed by the Turks in the fields of Achna, as he characteristically said. We prepared for the funeral in the church of Agios Andronikos, but due to the fact that the corpses of the two women were in decay, they could not take them down. For this reason, we went under a carob tree opposite the cemetery, made the Sequence and buried them in a grave that I had taken out. "No one had looked for them," he recalls.
With 36 bullets her body…
Friday's daughter, Katerina, who was preparing for her wedding in 1974, was looking in vain for years for her mother. "In 1974 our mother was in Engomi, Famagusta," he said. "She went to the Bases because the lady who had the house was her best man and she felt safe there. Opposite was a National Guard camp, but due to the Turkish bombing they had moved the soldiers.
Probably because of the camp there, the soldiers of the Bases left this part free. The Turks, due to the fact that there was a camp of the National Guard there, were shooting at the houses in the area. Our mother was in a house across the street, along with the lady who owned the house and another lady. It seems that seeing the soldiers, they thought they were ours and initially stayed out of the house. As we learned, they ran in when the Turkish soldiers came close enough and acknowledged that they were not our soldiers. The Turkish soldiers may have assumed that there were soldiers in the house and started firing en masse. As a result, all three women were killed. "Only my mother had 36 bullets," she added in her narrative.
Katerina says that no one knew where their mother was. "The man of the woman who had gone to bring bread from Deryneia, returning, wanted to go home, but was prevented by the soldiers of the Bases. He told them that his wife and two other women were inside, but they had initially told him that they had not located them. Two days later the women were taken dead and my mother was recognized by a friend of our father. We were told it was announced on the radio, but we did not hear anything, nor did anyone tell us anything.
For many years we did not know what our mother had become. Whoever I asked, I did not get an answer. They also asked the Red Cross but no answer. After almost 20 years I met by chance the man who had recognized my mother that day and told me what had happened. My legs were amputated when he told me… We asked in various villages in the area, but we could not find where they were buried. Recently, on the initiative of a father-in-law, the CMP was informed and so we found out what had happened ".
Concluding, Katerina states that they are anxiously waiting now to announce the results. "The exhumation took place, as we were informed and we are waiting for the DNA tests to be completed."
Source: Liberal