AKEL on Missing Persons Day

AKEL on Missing Persons Day
Statement by Skevi Koukouma, member of the Political
Bureau and AKEL MP
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 29th October 2015, Nicosia

On 29th October 1974 the remaining prisoners captured during the
Turkish invasion were released. From that moment onwards the prolonged
drama of hundreds of relatives of the missing persons began, which is
continuing today.
The importance of the day for both the relatives of missing persons and
for the people as a whole led the Pancyprian Organization of Relatives of
Undeclared Prisoners and Missing Persons in 2010 to propose to the House
of Representatives the establishment of 29th October as the Missing
Persons Day.
On the occasion of this day we would like to point out that the missing
persons of Cyprus, the cause of the verification of their fate, but also the
obligation to inform the relatives about the conditions under which their
own beloved ones lost their lives must be a daily preoccupation of the
state, the government and society.
This is the reason why we stress that we should further support the work
of the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) by increasing the funds for
the CMP and through the state’s organized efforts to issue a call to all
those who have any information about missing persons, Greek Cypriots
and Turkish Cypriots, to disclose it.
At this stage, it seems that the issue of the provision of further financial
support to the CMP program is of enormous importance. Currently, the
CMP’s economic weakness is leading to the delay in the anthropological
analyses and in the completion of the procedures to identify remains, as a
result of which families are being informed 1-2 years after the results of
exhumations being conducted today.
The second point which is also important is the need to exert pressure on
Turkey to give information from the archives of the Turkish army and of
other services about the disappearance of missing persons, as well as to
remove all the bureaucratic procedures and obstacles in order to conduct
exhumations in military zones.
Even if the years pass, even if it is considered that anniversary statements
don’t go further, we will not tire of repeating that the best vindication for
the missing persons, the refugees, the enclaved people in the occupied
areas, the fallen and the war-stricken victims of this country is the
liberation and reunification of Cyprus and its people.