Today marks the anniversary of the Sysklipos massacre in occupied northern Cyprus, where on 3 August 1974, 14 mainly elderly Greek Cypriot civilians were executed by Turkish soldiers and Turkish Cypriot irregulars assisting them.
The victims were killed in a household in the village of Sysklipos (Sysklipou) in the Kyrenia district after remaining behind when most residents fled the advancing Turkish forces during the second phase of the invasion. Their bodies were later buried in a mass grave. Additional residents of the village who stayed behind later disappeared and remain among Cyprus’s missing persons.
Among those murdered were relatives of the author of a commemorative statement shared widely today, who noted that the victims’ lives were “brutally cut short in their home alongside others who had stayed behind, unable to flee the invading forces.”
As Cyprus and the Greek diaspora commemorate this dark chapter of the 1974 Turkish invasion, calls continue for justice, the full accounting of the missing, and the eventual liberation and reunification of the island. Remembering these crimes remains essential so that such atrocities are never repeated.