Cyprus News Agency: News in English, 10-08-03
CONTENTS
[01] RELATIVES OF MISSING - EXHUMATIONS - PACE
[01] RELATIVES OF MISSING - EXHUMATIONS - PACE
Relatives of Greek Cypriots, missing since the 1974 Turkish invasion of
Cyprus, have expressed concern over the slow pace of exhumations and
identifications of remains believed to belong to their loved ones.
President of the Committee of Relatives of Undeclared Prisoners and
Missing Persons, Nicos Theodosiou, told CNA Tuesday that time is
running against them, explaining that many of the relatives of the
missing are already too old to wait for news about the fate of their
beloved ones.
We express our concern over the pace of identifications of remains.
Unfortunately many parents of missing persons are in their 80s or 90s,
many of them have died, without knowing anything about the fate of
their beloved children Theodosiou told CNA.
He explained that experts are working at the exhumation sites in the
southern government controlled areas of the Republic as well as in the
northern Turkish occupied areas, forensic scientists are at the
Institute of Neurology and Genetics for DNA identifications and at the
Anthropological Laboratory in the UN buffer zone.
Theodosiou said he would like to see better coordination between them.
He said that at present there are eight teams of experts working at
exhumation sites whereas in the past there were only two.
Furthermore, he expressed concern over the continuation of the work of
the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP), (a tripartite committee
comprising a UN representative and one from each of the islands two
communities -Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot-), if the Turkish
Cypriot regime in occupied Cyprus decides to suspend the work of the
CMP in this part of the country, should in their view developments in
the Cyprus issue call for such action.
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