Mea Culpa (*)

Opinion journalistsTurkish Cypriots Mea Culpa (*) Relevant News Father, son and daughter detained over 122 abuse charges as police seek missing siblings 3 July 2026 Mea Culpa (*) 3 July 2026 Church of Cyprus set to revive Apostle Paul relic transfer to Paphos 3 July 2026 Christos Michaelides 3 July 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber I dedicated my entire radio show, “Mirror,” to ERT, in Cyprus. All of Cyprus. After the death of a woman, from the North, who honored the whole island with the work she did for the benefit of both communities. That woman is Sevgül Uludağ, 68, a Turkish Cypriot journalist and activist who passed away last Sunday, June 28th, leaving behind a body of work that will honor her forever. A portfolio that perhaps we (the undersigned, definitely) do not recognise. Every Tuesday, on “Mirror,” we see and “hear” a Thought of the Day by writer and statistician Vivian Avraamidou Ploumpi, a refugee from Famagousta who is temporarily living in Prague with her partner until Cyprus is rebirthed. Last Monday night, as she was reading the bad news on Facebook, she had the feeling, she said “that for a few hours Cyprus forgot it was divided.” She continued: “I do not remember having ever seen something similar. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, people with different political outlooks, different paths, different memories, wrote and cried the same words. ‘A great Cypriot has passed away.’ ‘Irreplaceable.’ ‘I can’t believe it.'” No. It was not a typical expression of grief. It was the feeling that a person was lost who belonged to everyone. The woman they were talking about was the Turkish Cypriot journalist. Sevgül Uludağ. Perhaps a lot of people in Greece don’t recognise her name. In Cyprus, though, she was much more that a journalist. She was a woman who dedicated almost her whole life to one of the most difficult issues a person could take on: To write truthfully about the missing and murdered people of Cyprus. For those who were made victims of the intercommunal conflicts not only between 1963-64, but during the Turkish invasion in 1974. Not in government records and official files, but through the people themselves. Those who were witnesses, who knew and stayed silent for decades. She was able to meet them while they were still alive. And she managed to do something that seemed impossible: she got them to speak. In Cyprus, where memory is often deeper than the story, this was her greatest achievement. She didn’t only find out information. She won the trust of the people. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots trusted her with the truth that no one, even those closest to them, had ever found out. Because they knew that she wasn’t looking for anyone to blame. She was looking for the dead to justify the living. It didn’t interest her who was more justified. She wanted, and searched, to prove that no mother hurt less based on the language she spoke. In a Cyprus where almost everyone is separated into “our people” or “their people,” Sevgül dedicated her life to those who did not fit into any category: to the missing, the dead, the families that were still waiting for answers. For years we learned that only “our people” were dead. She taught us that pain does not exist in only one community. Thanks to her persistence, dozens of families, and Greek and Turkish Cypriots, people were able to bury their loved ones after decades of waiting. For those who did not experience the waiting, this might just seem like a simple piece of information. It is not. It is a difference in the wounds that have remained forever open, and in a person that can finally leave a few flowers on a grave. Sevgül spent her life digging up people. Not to wake up hate, but to allow the living to continue their lives. She taught us that reconciliation is not built on forgetting. But on the truth. Because people like Sevgül do not just preserve the memory of the dead. They also restore the hope that Cyprus can be its best self once again in the living. Like she searched nonstop, for years, for people who ‘disappeared’. (*) I sent my column in late because my colleagues from abroad kept asking me to tell them ‘a couple words’ about this remarkable woman. I recommended they get in touch with some good colleagues of mine in Cyprus, some of whom knew the deceased well. ‘No, you tell us the most important things, in three minutes, you know Cyprus!’ What do you say? How can you measure a response from afar? And from someone who didn’t know her at all? I was wrong! Read more: Mea Culpa (*) Turkish Cypriot journalist and activist Sevgül Uludağ dies aged 68 Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Father, son and daughter detained over 122 abuse charges as police seek missing siblings Church of Cyprus set to revive Apostle Paul relic transfer to Paphos Nicosia residents oppose plan for migrant minors’ housing centre Karpasia donkeys to be microchipped and rehoused under new plan Explainer: US-Iran war still trails the 1979 oil shock by total losses NATO leaders including Trump to affirm ‘ironclad commitment’ to collective defence in Ankara, summit text says bbf: presents :eden coast — The Art of Living by the Mediterranean Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.