Cyprus’ Committee on Missing Persons Gets 8 More Archaeologists, Digger

Society

Cyprus’ Committee on Missing Persons Gets 8 More Archaeologists, Digger

July 1, 2024

FILE - An anthropologist works on the remains of a missing person at the anthropologist laboratory of Cyprus Missing Persons (CMP) inside the U.N buffer zone in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, May 31, 2017. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)

NICOSIA – Cyprus’ Committee on Missing Persons, that’s trying to find the remains of 1,510 Greek Cypriots killed during Turkish invasions in 1974 and 1963-64 fighting, and 492 Turkish-Cypriots, will get eight more archaeologists and a digger.

That was made possible by 300,000 euros ($322,293) in government funding and support of the United Nations Development Program (UDP) when Cypriot President Nicos Christodoulides’ Undersecretary Ireni Piki signed an agreement, said The Cyprus Mail.

The committee was established, upon agreement between the leaders of the two communities, to find, exhume, identify and return remains to the relatives of those killed during the two conflicts who were never located.

UNDP representative Alexandre Pieto said the contribution showed, “The trust that you have in us in doing this very important and sensitive work for Cyprus,” for which Piki thanked the agency and said excavation work would be aided.

The Greek-Cypriot representative on the CMP, Leonidas Pantelides, said that the funding would cover the costs of hiring the additional archaeologists and purchasing more equipment that would “increase our excavation capacity”.

The CMP annual budget is 3.2 million euros ($3.44 million,) 80 percent from the European Union, which put in more than 30 million euros ($32.23 million) to the project, while the Greek-Cypriot side added 4 million euros ($4.3 million.)

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