The Pancyprian Organisation of the Relatives of Undeclared Prisoners and Missing Persons has sent an open letter to the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, urging him to undertake an initiative for the humanitarian issue of the missing persons.

Recalling recent statements made by Tatar on the missing persons issue,  the Organisation notes that the main problem that the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) is facing today is the lack and difficulty to find specific information and data about the burial sites of missing persons and the sites where remains  were moved from mass graves, as in the case of Assia, Lapatsa, Karavas and others, adding that “it  would be naive to believe that they were not organised and that these data do not exist or can not be easily found.”

It adds that unfortunately until today this information has not been submitted to the CMP, despite the recommendations  of the UN Secretary General, the Council of Europe and the European Union, who have repeatedly called on the parties involved to do so.

Noting that the information is there and that what is necessary now is humanitarian will, the Organisation calls on the Turkish Cypriot leader to take an initiative to arrange a meeting as soon as possible with President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades to discuss exclusively the issue of the missing and agree on specific and practical ways that will assist the CMP`s work so that the missing persons, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, are found without further delay, thus giving an end to a tragedy that for decades now causes suffering to both communities in Cyprus.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied 37% of its territory. Since then, the fate of hundreds of people remains unknown.
 
A Committee on Missing Persons has been established, upon agreement between the leaders of the two communities, with the scope of exhuming, identifying and returning to their relatives the remains of 492 Turkish Cypriots and 1,510 Greek Cypriots, who went missing during the inter-communal fighting of 1963-1964 and in 1974. So far, the remains of 722 Greek Cypriots and 284 Turkish Cypriots were returned to their families. Since the start of the year, until May 2021, the remains of 12 individuals were identified and remains belonging to 6 people were exhumed in various excavations.