CYPRUS-WOMEN/MISSING
Cyprus Widows To Bury The Dead of 1974 Invasion
The men`s remains were found in a mass grave in northern Cyprus.

http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=165464

A painful chapter in the turbulent history of Cyprus reaches closure
for three Greek Cypriot women who will bury their dead on Saturday 34
years after they were killed by Turkish troops in 1974.

Charita Mandoles last saw her husband and father alive on July 21 of
that year, as prisoners of Turkish troops who invaded the ethnically
divided Mediterranean island a day before.

Mandoles, now 62, has worn mourning black since she was 27. She and
two sisters will officially be classed as widows after the funerals
take place in the port town of Limassol.

As Turkish Cypriots prepare to celebrate the July 20 anniversary of
the landing, Mandoles and sisters Yiannoula and Maria will take
delivery of their husbands in small wooden boxes.

The men's remains were found in a mass grave in northern Cyprus, an
area largely out of bounds to Greek Cypriots whose brief coup
triggered the Turkish invasion.

"My husband doesn't even have a skull," she told Reuters on Friday.
"We have bones from his legs and an arm bone. He doesn't have
anything. What am I to bury?"

The last time Mandoles saw her husband he screamed at her to lie low,
as Turkish troops led a group of 38 Greek Cypriot civilians into an
olive grove, separated the men from the women and children, then
sprayed them with bullets.

Women and children fled, not daring to look back. Since then, the
flicker of hope that Andreas Mandoles was still alive was snuffed out
last month when a team of scientists working under U.N. supervision
identified his remains.

"I always thought there was a 99.5 percent chance he was dead. I
allowed myself a bit of hope," Mandoles said. "I wanted to touch him,
feel him to see for myself."

More than 2,000 Greek and Turkish Cypriots are still missing, as their
communities gingerly try to heal past wounds. Leaders of the two sides
are expected to announce a relaunch of peace talks in September, at a
meeting scheduled for July 25.

Hundreds of ethnic Turks were rounded up by Greek Cypriot extremists
before and after events in 1974, disappearing without trace only to be
found decades later dumped in mass graves.

Neither side speaks openly about these events.

To date, the remains of 412 Turkish and Greek Cypriots have been
exhumed from different burial sites across the island.

Mandoles said that the mass grave had to be checked four times since
her husband's remains were incomplete.

"I was sifting through the earth to find bones of my husband, but I
couldn't find any," she said, weeping. "They found part of (someone
elses') jaw."

She never considered remarrying. "You marry, have children, and stand
by your children. My life stopped for me at 27."

--
June Samaras
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