NICOSIA – Some 20 women were killed on Cyprus since 2018, seven by the serial killer Nikos Metaxas – known as Orestis – who is serving seven life sentences and police said there are five femicides annually on average on the island nation.

That was reported by Philenews, citing police data after an 82-year-old woman, Giorgoulla Charalambous, was killed by her 84-year-old husband in Limassol, authorities said, in the first murder of the year recorded.

Police spokesman Christos Andreou said that women were nine out of the record year’s total of 13 murder victims in 2019, including the victims of Metaxas, an army veteran who apologized for his reign of terror.

That included two children of women he killed, tossing them into a lake by an abandoned mine in a case that shocked the country and brought international attention for its savagery and cold-bloodedness.

In 2020, five women were murdered out of a total of 15 killings that year. And in in 2021, another five women were murdered out of 14 premeditated illings, the report also said.

All the homicides were committed by spouses, ex-spouses or companions of the victims and the motives were personal differences, not random acts, it was said of the crimes.