Liopetri River: The tragic drowning becomes a documentary

On June 9, 1919, Monday of the Flood, around 11:30 a.m., a small fishing boat capsized in the Liopetri River. Twenty-eight of the 35 souls that were boarded drowned. The tragedy, dubbed the biggest naval tragedy ever in Cyprus, plunged all Kokkinochoria, especially the three villages of Xylofagou, Liopetri and Avgorou, into grief and mourning.

On the anniversary of this tragic story, the coming one Sunday, June 9, at 11:30 a.m., exactly 100 years after the incident, the documentary trailer will be posted on Facebook and YouTube "The Great Drowning".

The documentary, a production of the "Cultural Workshop of Xylofagos" and which will start to be shown in the communities of Kokkinochoria from the 1st of November, is a historical document that aims to revive the tragedy of the River.

It will consist of rare archival material, historical data from that time with details of the life of the people in the surrounding communities at the beginning of the 20th century, dramatized interviews of survivors as well as interviews of people who heard the events first hand. The 70-minute production will give an answer to the causes of the disaster; it will report on all the passengers on the boat; it will present unknown details about the people who drowned, and it will reveal several unknown and shocking details.

The whole project, a painstaking effort of the "Cultural Laboratory of Xylofagos", a non-governmental, non-profit association that has the sole purpose of researching and promoting cultural issues and issues concerning the village of Xylofagou and generally the whole of Cyprus, has begun. for two and a half years.

The primary goal of the documentary is to commemorate all the women and children who were lost so unjustly, in an instant, and to emphasize how much the lives of both the relatives of the dead and those who survived were stigmatized.

Details of the screening schedule will be provided in the coming months.