Funeral for Benon Sevan to be held on October 12

By Rebekah Gregoriades Benon Sevan, who died on Monday, aged 88, will be laid to rest on Monday, October 12. The funeral will be held at the Armenian church in Nicosia at noon. Sevan was a diplomat and former UN assistant secretary general, who dedicated his life to promoting Armenian heritage and served as a representative of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU). On Monday, AGBU described Benon Sevan as a beacon of guidance, a mentor, a tireless defender of Armenian cultural heritage and a “family” for many generations of Armenians in Cyprus. “His warm personality, keen intellect, passion and selfless generosity earned him the love and respect of all those who had the blessing of knowing him,” the AGBU said. Born in Nicosia, he graduated from the capital’s AGBU Melkonian Educational Institute, obtained a bachelor of arts degree in history and philosophy at Columbia College in New York and a graduate degree from the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University. Joining the UN secretariat in 1965, Sevan served as a UN observer with the special representative of the secretary-general for the act of free choice in West Irian in Indonesia, Assistant Resident Representative with the Fund of the UN for the Development of West Irian, and as the senior secretariat official with the mission to inquire on the situation of prisoners of war in the Iran and Iraq conflict. On July 20, 1992, secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali announced the appointment of Sevan to the post of assistant secretary-general in the department of political affairs at UN Headquarters in New York, before later heading the UN’s Oil-for-Food programme in Iraq between 1995 and 2003.