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Destruction resulting from the
invasion
The Turkish invasion of 1974 uprooted the 971
inhabitants of the village.
Taken by buses against their will, they began the road
of exile. They were resettled in the Turkish Cypriot
villages of Ayios Thomas and Plataniskia in the Limassol
region. Others left Cyprus. All Eptakomi not only mourns
the loss of the village and the land but those who are
missing and dead.
One of the dead, the soldier Markos Markou, who was 20
at the time, was killing in a Turkish air raid on 20
July near Kontemeno, Nicosia, while the paralysed old
man Charalambos Agapitos, grandson of Antonis the folk
poet of Eptakomi, was murdered by Turkish settlers in
August 1976 in order to frighten the 408 enclaved
villagers into leaving Eptakomi. Another soldier,
Andreas Afxentiou, is missing since the battle which
took place at the Gate of Famagusta. Among the other
missing are the Deacon Vasilis Yiannakas, the third year
:aw student Mihael Sialounas. The other missing are the
mayor Loukas Kyriacou, the teacher Antonis Konis, the
rural constable Kyriacos Pierou, the driver Dimitris
Charalambous, the builder Georgios Kasiouris and the
farmers Andreas Konstantinou, Yiannis Yerolemou, Yiannos
lambrou, Leontis Christofi, Dimitris Spyrou, Charalambos
Michael and Adamos Sergiou.
In Ayios Thomas and Plataniskia the remaining villagers
are refugees. They have set up temporarily a New
Eptakomi with their churches which are a reminder of the
churches of St Luke, St George and the chapels of the
Archangel Michael and St Agathi in Eptakomi. The Bible,
for so many years kept hidden and under guard in Ayios
Thomas, is now being carefully restored |
