I was born in a small island, Cyprus. Despite the size of
the island, Cyprus had a lot of invaders targeting to conquer it. Since the
summer of 1974, when Turkish troops landed at the beach of Kyrenia starting an
invasion, until today the northern part of the island is occupied. In the so
called Pseudo-government (36.5%) live today not only Turkish migrants, but also
Turkish-Cypriots, who used to live in Cyprus before the invasion and a small
amount of Greek-Cypriots, who didn’t want to leave their houses. The rest of
the Greek-Cypriots, who were expelled from the northern part of Cyprus are
refugees (200,000), where Greek Cypriots constituted 80% of the population.
Some of them chose to stay in Cyprus and start their lives at the non-occupied
part of the island, but a lot of them chose to leave the country. England,
Australia, USA and Greece are some of the countries, were Cypriots chose to
continue their lives. Some of them came back, but most of them chose to stay
there. After 43 years Turkish army still has 30,000 troops stationed in the
island’s north and the negotiation between the two Governments (Cyprus and
Turkey) try to find a way to solve these problems.
My family comes from the south part of Cyprus, but I have a
lot of friends, who their parents are refugees. I’ve heard a lot of stories
from people, who had to leave their houses in the middle of the night and even
though they were six or seven years old, they will never forget this night. Most
of the families thought that, this will last two or three days, so they took
just a key of their house and some clothes with them. No one believed that they
won’t be able to go back even after 43 years. A lot of them lived in camps and
waited for the government to build residences and give them some money to start
their lives again.
This is why people in my age, although they didn’t live
under these circumstances and they grew up hearing about them, generated some
kind of hate against the Turkish population. The system of our primary school
makes sure that children never forget what happened in 1974, which raises this
kind of hatred even more. Moreover stories about Greek-Cypriots going to visit
their old houses in the northern part of Cyprus and the reactions of
Turkish-Cypriots make the situation worse. I cannot even imagine how it is,
visiting your home after all these years and seeing a stranger living there and
telling you: NO! This is my home now and you are not allowed to come in!
On the other hand there are also stories about
Turkish-Cypriots, who kept all personal things of the Greek-Cypriots’ refugees,
hoping that someday they will come back and get them (both sides are allowed to visit, but all of
us have to show an ID card to pass the “boarders”). Maybe because they used to
have lives at the south part of Cyprus and they are refugees themselves. My
father has a friend, who his father was a photographer in Famagusta, one of the
occupied cities. After he visited his home, the Turkish-Cypriot living there,
gave him a box filled with photos from Greek families, who lived there before
the invasion. Even though his father died, before the “boarders” were open he
managed to give the photos he found, to the children or maybe the grandchildren
of these Greek families, who now are 40 to 50 years old.
In a war both sides have loses! Human beings are just the
victims of conflicts and the ones, who have to suffer even though they are not
responsible. The refugee situation in Cyprus brought a lot of problems and
there are still people, who die waiting for their missing husbands or children
to come back, or with the hope of returning back to their homes.
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