Oικοσελίδα | Ιστοχάρτης | Επικοινωνία
Lapithos the fair lemon blossoming head village, the Byzantine Lambousa, always woke up cool and very beautiful until the cursed day of the treacherous coup d’ etat of July 15th 1974 perpetrated by the Junta of Athens and EOKA B’. Turkey who was way laying for years before, found the pretext to invade in Cyprus on July 20th, 1974.
That day Lapithos did not wake up at ease bathed in its green halo, the blue of the sea and the bright light of sunrise. It was dawning July 20th 1974, when low flying Turkish war planes scared Lapithos and some distance to the East of the Monastery of Aheiropoietos , Turkish Attila warships had anchored during the night ready to bombard. Bombardment from the air and from the sea started at 5:30’ that morning. Four low flying bombers, giving the impression they were about to fall on the rooftops, indiscriminately bombarded among other targets military camps at Glykiotissa, the camp near Aheiropoietos Monastery, the Bosphorus camp east of Keryneia and the Sands of Panagra where there were disused look out posts since 1964.
Scared villagers tried to hide in their lemon orchards. When the war planes emptied their bombs flew to Turkey to reload the war ships too started bombarding villages in the Pentadactylos Mountain slopes and civilians indiscriminately. Death and destruction was the result…
For three days on July 20th , 21st and 22nd the Turks bombarded and killed. On July 23rd we were informed that the Turks had landed at daybreak on the 20th at 6 and 5 mile west of Keryneia killing indiscriminately, violating women, taking civilians as prisoners.
On Monday, July 22nd 1974, the UN Security Council decided on a cease fire. The Turkish invaders did not stop their advance. They captured Keryneia at 6 p.m. while Lapithos and Karavas were going through tragic hours expecting in anguish what the day after would bring.
Some villagers left for Lefkosia and for other places sensing disaster while others were staying and hoping…
The Turkish troops advanced systematically according to a program. They carried mopping up operations, seized property and arrested civilians. People scared leave to save their life, they do not know, they do not believe that their escape is predetermined since Attila’s aim was partition, occupation and Turkification of a land that for 3000 years had always been Greek because it was born of Greek hands and succeeded in achieving great progress reaching lofty targets through Greek ideals and culture.
Following violent fighting on August 4th and 5th in the hills and the lemon orchards of Lapithos on Tuesday the 6th the Turks occupied the village paying a very heavy price with many dead and injured.
The Turkish forces attacked at 4:20 a.m. but until 11:45 a.m. did not even to capture a single village hamlet. However when the companies of Eftychios Salatas and those of second lieutenant Hadjinicolaou were ordered to break away from Lapithos and Karavas and take positions in the Vasileia – Vavylas line, the Turks ambushed them by the canes of Airkotissa where the brave fighters of the 256 army battalion suffered heavy losses.
At 3:20 p.m. the Turkish tanks passed from Karavas to Lapithos and the 256 battalion left on the battlefield 24 dead, 26 injured and 50 are still missing. Those were the first losses. There followed other losses. Finally by August 6th the losses of the above battalion and those of the 70 E.C. battalion dead and missing rose to 99.
On August 6th 1974 Lapithos, the cool and all green village with its strange beauty, a combination of mountain and sea view together with neighbouring Karavas, the two big villages of Keryneia District fell into the hands of the Turkish Attila.
The 28th Turkish division suffered great losses but many Greek Cypriot civilians were murdered in cold blood and many were taken prisoners.
The missing, fallen and killed Lapithians amount to 91 and the prisoners taken then were 40. One hundred and eighty two Lapithians remained enclaved.
The Lapithians dispersed as refugees, tried to seek refuge in the homes of relations living in the free areas of the Republic, in schools and under olive or carob trees and wherever they could find a shelter. They were living with the hope that they would soon return to their homes and to Lapithos. Their heart was broken as a result of the destruction caused by the invasion of a foreign army and the injustice of being forced out of their homes.
They were asking themselves how after two World Wars fought in the 20th century was still possible for Turkey to impose the law of the jungle. The people could not believe that they could not return to their ancestral homes to Lapithos which had been Greek for 3000 years and was put under the boot of the Turkish invader. The people could not perceive how the United Nations Organization, the protectors of Human Rights, would permit that injustice against civilian populations living peacefully in their villages. How did the United Nations tolerate an invasion of a nation of fifty million into a small island of less than a million people, a Member state of their own organization with all the consequences of such aggression?
The people of Lapithos became refugees in their own land and soon tried to become active, to survive and stand the unbearable pain of expectation for the day of their return because inside their heart they knew that one day the will return.
The return to Lapithos has become the aim and the yearning of the refugees from Lapithos. It has been for thirty years the target of their efforts and of their activities. They are not giving up their hope and they will struggle to make true the return to their beautiful village under conditions of freedom and respect for human rights.
Νέα και Εκδηλώσεις
22 April 1013-18/09/2010 ΑΦΙΕΡΩΜΑ ΣΤΙΣ ΛΑΪΚΕΣ ΤΕΧΝΕΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΙΘΟΥΣΑ "ΜΕΛΙΝΑ ΜΕΡΚΟΥΡΗ"22 April 1009/11/2010 100 ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΙΔΡΥΣΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟΥ ΓΥΜΝ. ΛΑΠΗΘΟΥΣΤΟ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΤΙΚΟ ΙΔΡΥΜΑ ΤΗΣ ΙΕΡΑΣ ΜΟΝΗΣ ΚΥΚΚΟΥ