by ttoli » Tue Jul 08, 2008 8:44 pm
The flag was built by the survivors of Taskent (Tochni) when they were evacuated to Vouno (renamed Taskent in memory).
Details of the atrocity are as follows.
Taskent (Tokhni) was a mixed village in the south near Limassol, which was struck with a massive tragedy on Aug. 14, 1974. All the able-bodied men from the village, ages ranging from 13 to 74, were taken away by Greeks and Greek Cypriots and massacred along with 15 other Turkish Cypriot boys and men from the villages of Tatlisu (Mari) and Terazi (Zyyi).
These Turkish Cypriot men were first taken to the Greek primary school in the village where there were some Greek mainland officers. The next day they were loaded onto two buses and driven off. The first bus left in the morning, the second in the early afternoon. They were told they were being taken to a prisoner of war camp. Altogether 89 boys and men were sent away on the two buses.
The sole survivor of the massacre was Suat Huseyin Kafadar, aged 19, from the village Taskent (Tokhni).
"We came to a field, I don't know where it was, and were ordered out," said Suat. "The Greeks came round, ordering us to hand over our watches, ID cards, etc. They told us we could have a smoke and many of us lit cigarettes.
"Suddenly, without any warning, they opened fire on us with automatic weapons and mowed us down. I was hit several times and fell and lay in a pile of other men. I was still conscious and was aware that the Greeks were walking in among the bodies, shooting men in the head, making sure they were dead.
"But when they came to me they went past. After a while they went away and I managed to pull myself out from under several bodies. I found out why the Greeks had thought I was dead. My head was covered by the brains of the man on top of me!
"As I was crawling away from that awful place, I saw two other men who were still alive. I went to them and started to help them to get away, too, but one of them told me to leave them, they were finished, they'd never escape before the Greeks came back.
"Get away, tell everyone what happened here," he ordered me. It took me several days, hiding during the day, to reach a Turkish village and learn that I was the only survivor of the Taskent massacre."
When Suat's story became known the United Nations tried to investigate, but the Greek Cypriots refused to tell them anything or show them the massacre spot. It was assumed that the other bus load of men had also been machine gunned to death for they were never seen again. It was also believed that the bodies had been covered by bulldozers as no trace was found and this seemed to be the method by which the Greeks were burying their Turkish victims.
The women of Taskent (Tokhni) could only be evacuated on Oct. 25, 1974, by UNFICYP to Northern Cyprus, and the village was reconstituted under the same name near Lefkosa. The existence of a mass grave in South Cyprus where the male population of Taskent (Tokhni), Tatlisu (Mari) and Terazi (Zyyi) is known to have been buried was confirmed by UNFICYP.
