Funerals held for 15 missing persons from Aloa massacre

A funeral service was held on Friday evening for 15 missing persons, including nine children, whose remains had been recovered by the Committee on Missing Persons, at the Turkish Cypriot cemetery in the Famagusta district village of Aloa. The youngest to be buried was just 40 days old. The fifteen had all been killed by Greek Cypriot militias in the village on August 14, 1974, with similar violence erupting in the nearby villages of Maratha and Sandalaris, with a total of 89 Turkish Cypriots being killed as a result. Those buried on Friday evening were 28-year-old Tulay Suleyman, 10-year-old Hasan Suleyman, six-year-old Kemal Suleyman, three-year-old Okan Suleyman, 12-year-old Gurhan Ali Cerkes, 56-year-old Ayse Hasan, 16-year-old Narin Hasan, 22-year-old Kiymet Hasan, 16-month-old Betul Arnavut, 36-year-old Mualla Ali Osman, four-year-old Gulden Ali Osman, two-year-old Ozlem Ali Osman, 40-day-old Seldem Ali Osman, 46-year-old Fatma Tahir, and 22-year-old Emine Tahir. The service was attended by Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman, Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz, Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel, Turkish ambassador in Nicosia Ali Murat Basceri, and a number of other dignitaries. Following the funeral, an opening event was held for a museum constructed to document the massacres, with Erhurman saying at that event that “those who murdered our people did not only murder our people; they murdered humanity, they murdered humaneness, they murdered civilisation”. He added that “we buried the 15 innocent and defenceless people who were murdered 52 years ago with the same pain as the day it happened”, before adding that “what happened in Aloa will never be erased from the memory of the Turkish Cypriot people”. “The Turkish Cypriot people have reached this point today after enduring great suffering, paying a heavy price, and waging a difficult fight for existence. We owe a great debt to both the martyrs buried today and all the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the existence of this people,” he said. He then stressed that the Committee on Missing Persons has “been carrying out meticulous and sensitive work for a long time”, and called on both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot politicians to “show maximum sensitivity in ensuring that the issue of missing persons and the committee’s work are not politicised”. ‘An initiative which acts as if only Greek Cypriot losses exist’ On this front, he offered criticism for Disy member of the European Parliament Michalis Hadjipantela, who last year tabled and secured the passage of an amendment to the EU’s budget demanding a monument to only those who went missing as a result of Turkey’s invasion of the island in 1974. “This Greek Cypriot MEP, who represents the Turkish Cypriot people in the European Parliament, where we would ordinarily have two seats of our own, is working to use the European Parliament to produce resolutions against Turkish Cypriots,” he said. He added that this resolution, as well as a report on sexual violence in 1974 which only documented Greek Cypriot victims, are “the result of an initiative which acts as if only Greek Cypriot losses exist”, and are “biased and completely unacceptable”. Cevdet Yilmaz pours earth onto one of the graves “There are issues which we have never politicised, because we are a people who know what human suffering, the suffering of a child, means,” he said. He added, “we may not be recognised by other states besides the Republic of Turkey at the moment, but we also know, and we explain this to all of our counterparts: recognition is one thing, but being civilised, being cultured is quite another, and recognition is not a prerequisite for being civilised and being cultured”. Later, he stressed that “the fight for existence and the suffering endured by the Turkish Cypriot people cannot be ignored, denied or forgotten”. “The Turkish Cypriot people, who have been fighting for their existence under the most difficult conditions since 1878, have always been and will continue to be present on the island,” he said.