The Palekythro massacre: more victims are buried

Above is a news item that appeared on Cyprus TV on Friday regarding the Palekythro massacre, which I’ve written about previously here. The murderers were three Turkish Cypriot teenagers from the neighbouring Turkish village of Epiho, who took advantage of the second phase of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 14 August 1974 to descend on Palekythro first to steal livestock and farming machinery from Greek villagers before returning the next day to round up the elderly and the women and children, who were then systematically killed.

Of the 18 Greeks slaughtered, eight were members of one family, spanning four generations. They were Ioannis Mihail, 77, and his wife, Christina, 68, their son, Michalis, 42, and daughter, Margarita Liasi, 48, her three daughters, Eleni, 25, Christina, 23, and Iliada, 18, as well as Loukas Kkailos, aged 2, Margarita’s grandson. Two members of the Liasi family survived the massacre: Giorgios, 15, and Yiannoula, 27, Loukas’ mother. Another brother, Panayiotis, was serving with the National Guard at the time and was not in the village, while the father, Loukas Liasi, was away working in Libya. In the clip (with English subtitles), Giorgios and Yiannoula recall the massacre of their family. Also, see this report (in Greek) in Simerini.

Below is the report from yesterday’s RIK news on the funeral. The poor quality of the sound (and my Greek) has meant that I haven’t been able to provide English subtitles for the whole clip. The images speak for themselves, however.