THE TRAGEDY OF TERAZÝ
The Turkish women of Cyprus have had some very harsh and painful experiences during the Greek Cypriot attacks, but none so tragic and agonizing, as the abduction of their menfolk. The abduction by armed Greek Cypriots of 16 Turkish Cypriot men, between the ages of 19 and 38, from the Terazi (Zyyi) village in the Larnaca district is a tragic example. Those men were rounded up from their homes and taken to an unknown destination from the same village on 14 August, 1974. No one has seen or heard of these luckless men since the day they were marched off to their dreadful, unknown fate.
Terazi is a small fishing village on the southern coast of Cyprus, situated between Cape Kiti and Akrotiri Bay. In 1960 there were 84 Turks and 86 Greeks in the village. But this numerical equality did not give any security to the Turks because the Greeks of Terazi, like all Greeks in mixed villages, were armed by the Greek Cypriot authorities and thus were able to subdue and opress their unarmed Turkish neighbours
The drama of the Terazi village compiled from the testimony of the wives or mothers of the victims, is not a unique or exceptional trauma for the Turks. The lives of thousands of Turkish Cypriot men and women have been permanently saddended with the indelible memory of a loving husband, or a dear son or an affectionate brother carried off by force by Greek Cypriots – often their neighbours – at one time or another during the period of 1963-1974.
Below are the accounts given in 1977 by seven Turkish Cypriot women from Terazi on the absolute hell they had to endure in Greek Cypriot hands until they were allowed to move to Northern Cyprus where they enjoyed freedom and liberty for the first time since 1963. Their sufferings have been the same as that of tens of thousands of Turkish Cypriots from other villages of Cyprus
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