Remains of four missing persons found at three Cyprus excavation sites

Lapithos, Cyprus. The remains of four missing persons were found this week at three sites being excavated by the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP), its Greek Cypriot member Leonidas Pantelides said. Remains belonging to two people were found in Lapithos, and those of one person each in Ayios Georgios Spatharikou and Kalo Chorio Kythreas.

Excavations and access

Speaking at a meeting of the 100-member advisory body of the Pancyprian Organisation of Relatives of Missing Persons, Pantelides said excavations were under way at eight sites: Assia, Lapithos, Exo Metochi, Neo Chorio Kythreas, Livadia Famagusta, Yerolakkos, Ayios Georgios Spatharikou and a military area in Karavas.

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He said restrictions concerning a 25-metre area at military sites had been relaxed following pressure. The issue was also raised with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during his visit to Cyprus at the end of July, Pantelides said.

Identification figures

Pantelides said the official list contains 2,002 Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot missing persons. He said the number of Greek Cypriots on the list was 126 fewer than 1,619, and that confusion sometimes arose between the number of people whose remains had not been found and those who had been identified.

Of the 2,002 people on the list, 1,082 have been identified: 765 Greek Cypriots and 317 Turkish Cypriots. A further 745 Greek Cypriots and 175 Turkish Cypriots remain, he said. Twenty people have been identified so far in 2026, compared with 12 during all of 2025.

Pantelides said major mass graves had still not been located and expressed hope that ongoing efforts would bring investigators closer to finding them. He said investigators were seeking records from the Turkish army’s medical service, which carried out collective burials in 1974, rather than the army’s operational records.

Presidential Commissioner Marios Hartsiotis told the meeting that determining the fate of the missing remained a paramount humanitarian and national obligation for the state.