Cyprus’s unaccompanied refugee children recall trip to Greece after 1974 invasion

Local cyprusGreecerefugeesTop Newsturkish invasion Cyprus’s unaccompanied refugee children recall trip to Greece after 1974 invasion Ta Viomata Ton Paidion Tou 74 6 1024x576 Relevant News Cyprus’s unaccompanied refugee children recall trip to Greece after 1974 invasion 26 July 2026 Small Cyprus tourism businesses struggle with green transition 26 July 2026 Iran war spreads to Red Sea and Caspian, Gulf quiet as US forgoes strikes 26 July 2026 Despoina Psyllou 26 July 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber They boarded the ships with a single change of clothes, heading into the unknown but away from the horror of the Turkish invasion. They were children barely into adolescence, traumatised by what they had seen and, above all, by what they had lost. They travelled without the watchful eyes of their mothers. Behind them, their homeland was bleeding. People had only recently been killed. Relatives were missing. The sound of the bombings still echoed and the anxiety surrounding one question had not subsided: “Had the war really ended?” They were Cyprus’s refugee children of 1974 — unaccompanied minors sent to Greece to survive. MEP Giorgos Georgiou and journalist Kornilios Hadjikostas described their harrowing journeys to Phileleftheros, speaking about the bonds they formed and the love they received far from home, which neither has ever forgotten. “I was 11 during the war. I come from Afaneia in Famagusta district, and I was held captive for 15 days together with my mother, my siblings and several relatives,” Georgiou said. After they were released, the family went to Larnaca and then to Kyperounta. “I heard on the radio that the Metropolitan of Ilia and Oleni would host children in the Ilia region. I told my mother I wanted to leave. “We had been through extremely difficult experiences. On 6 August, we had buried my first cousin, who had been killed, and two other close relatives — my brother-in-law and my uncle — were missing. There was also no certainty that the war was over. “I felt that I wanted to leave. My mother objected, but given the uncertainty of the situation, she agreed.” He was to travel with his sister and a first cousin. “My mother’s only concern was that, as the slightly older one, I should make sure we all stayed together wherever we went. “I felt that she bitterly regretted her decision when I waved goodbye to her from the ship’s deck and could hear her sobbing. But it was too late because the ship had already sailed,” he recalled emotionally. It was the first time they had been on a ship and the first time they had left Cyprus. For a while, the novelty made many of the children forget their tears and created the illusion that they were going on a school trip. “We arrived in Piraeus after a day and a half,” Georgiou said. From there, they were taken elsewhere. All he owned was a small leather bag, one change of clothes and a little food for the journey. But when they arrived in Greece, both residents and their foster families made sure they lacked nothing. “The welcome from the people was extremely warm. They climbed onto the buses or threw chocolates, sweets and other things through the windows as a gesture of welcome. “That reception made us feel reassured that we would be in good hands, because we did not even know where we were going,” he said. They eventually arrived in Varda, at a station where individuals and families approved by the Metropolis of Ilia had gathered to take children into their homes. There was, however, one condition that had to be met: Georgiou, his sister and his cousin had to remain together. “A man then said, ‘I can take you to the same village, but not to the same house.’ He was Sakis Karathanasis, who was mayor of Andravida at the time. I went to stay with Aunt Athitsa and Uncle Dinos.” Georgiou remembers that they went to the coffee shop on the first evening. “A great many people gathered around me and asked me all kinds of questions. “I will never forget that the memories, emotions and experiences of captivity and war were still very fresh as I described the bombings, the aircraft, the killings and the rapes that had taken place in my village. “Everyone was deeply moved and in tears.” Georgiou said the teachers and other pupils welcomed them to school with great affection. “I personally had a wonderful time with that family. They were older people without children and they loved me as their own. “When the following summer approached and it was nearly time for us to leave, Aunt Athitsa asked whether I wanted to stay there forever and be adopted by them. Obviously, my mother would never have agreed to that.” He remembers the people of the area as ordinary, democratic citizens who were deeply angry that the Greek junta had failed to act and had allowed EOKA B to carry out the coup. “They even apologised to us for Cyprus having been left without help.” He returned to the village as a student in 1983 and saw Aunt Athitsa again. “I went back later with my children to see them, but they were no longer alive. I mourned them as though they were my parents.” The bonds formed during that period were strong, he said. He remained in contact with the couple’s relatives, his former classmates and his teacher, Evgenia Karathanasi. They still communicate and visit one another. Andravida, he said, has now become his village too. “We were unaccompanied children,” Georgiou said, “but we were fortunate enough to fall into very warm embraces. “Not like unaccompanied children today, who either drown at sea or suffer sexual and other forms of exploitation. “Yesterday it was us. Today it is someone else. That is why our treatment of these people, and of children in particular, must be guided by sensitivity and empathy.” Letters filled with anxiety for those left in Cyprus However well the children were treated in Greece, Georgiou explained, and however much love and care they received, they did not forget Cyprus. They worried about their families. “We were children who grew up in a single day. The experience of war, captivity, the coup and the invasion made us grow up and mature. “I worried about Cyprus because, apart from burying my cousin on 6 August — whom my aunt dug out with her bare hands 14 days later from the mass grave where he had been placed — two other relatives remained missing. “In the letters I exchanged with my mother, I constantly asked, ‘Has Uncle Kleanthis returned? Has our brother-in-law returned?’ They never did.” Their correspondence was regular. “I must tell you that I still keep those letters. They are letters soaked by my tears from when I read them at the time. “I missed my mother. I missed my family, my siblings and my father. However well we were treated, that distance was not easy. Nor were the circumstances.” Kornilios Hadjikostas: The confectioner who pretended to record their debts “When, amid the immense difficulties of surviving, we heard that refugee pupils could be hosted in Greece with all their expenses covered, the relief we felt was indescribable,” Hadjikostas said. “Such a way out was a gift from God. Just consider that there were nine children in our family and we had lost our main source of livelihood, agriculture.” The home in which they had ended up as refugees was little more than a dark storeroom, which the family cleaned and converted with enormous difficulty to make it habitable. “I was 14 at the time. I was the first to leave for Greece aboard the ship Oinousai, which sailed from Limassol to Piraeus on 4 October 1974. “My twin sister Filothei and our younger brother Eusevios followed on other ships. We all stayed in different boarding institutions,” he said. “I was deeply moved when I first set foot on Greek soil, because I saw Greece more as an idea,” Hadjikostas said. Speaking about the people who greeted them, he added: “Tears ran from their eyes when they saw us, driven from our homes by Turkish brutality. “They could not hear enough of our stories — how we had been uprooted and how Turkish aircraft had bombed us. “I myself had been in danger. On the first day of the invasion, in my village, Filia, the aircraft opened fire close to me. I lay on the ground and watched the bullets strike the orange trees a few metres away and then hit a shepherd from my village in the leg.” Their first destination was a boarding institution in Kareas, Athens, where they stayed for 10 days. “I cannot forget an exceptional woman who cared for us with so much love that we called her ‘Mum’.” About 50 children were later transferred to the Children’s Home in Oreokastro, under the responsibility of the National Welfare Organisation. There, too, the children received great affection and warmth. “They were always there in our moments of loneliness, sadness and difficulty.” The concern shown by residents was evident at every opportunity, Hadjikostas said. “When we went down from the Children’s Home into Oreokastro, they would not allow us to pay. “The late Stelios, the confectioner, would pretend to write down what we owed in his ledger, but he never asked us for the money,” he recalled. “In January 1975, my father visited us and took the three of us to Florina, where we stayed in boarding institutions run by the Metropolitan of Florina, Prespes and Eordaia, Augustinos Kantiotis.” There, too, they received similar love and care. “I will never forget the people who sometimes hosted us in their homes so that we could escape the routine of the boarding institution for a while. “I stayed in Florina until I graduated from secondary school in June 1978. “But when I was in my fifth year, I found out that the cost of my stay was being paid jointly by two women who did not want me to know their names. “Could they have been the same exceptional women who bought us clothes at Christmas?” he wondered. Hadjikostas said he learned only a year ago about another moving incident involving a Christmas gift, which left him astonished. “The father of a local boy had told him to give something he loved very much to a Cypriot child from the boarding institution. “He decided to give away a favourite jumper his parents had only just bought him. “He later saw me wearing it, but he never told me that it had been his, even though I saw him almost every day.” The stories are endless, Hadjikostas said, adding that he feels profound gratitude for the hospitality he received in Greece. “I constantly try to repay it in my own way as much as I can. “I remain in regular contact with both Florina and Oreokastro and with the people there. I visit them often, and they also come to Cyprus.” Events expressing their gratitude have been held in both Florina and Oreokastro, he said. “In Oreokastro, we called the event we held in May 2025 ‘Gratitude’. “As part of that event, and in cooperation with the local authorities, we also installed a commemorative plaque at the Children’s Home.” Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Small Cyprus tourism businesses struggle with green transition Iran war spreads to Red Sea and Caspian, Gulf quiet as US forgoes strikes Rescuers scour South China Sea for 23 missing after Vietnamese vessel sinks Two arrested after 21-year-old injured in Limassol fight Electrical fault sparks house fire near Akaki Wildfires force evacuations outside Bordeaux as Spanish blazes cause first death UN chief’s visit delays Cyprus cabinet reshuffle as DIKO talks continue Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.