Cyprus News Agency: News in English, 10-08-03

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From: The Cyprus News Agency at <http://www.cyna.org.cy>

CONTENTS

[01] RELATIVES OF MISSING - EXHUMATIONS - PACE

[01] RELATIVES OF MISSING - EXHUMATIONS - PACE

President of the Committee of Relatives of Undeclared Prisoners and Missing Persons, Nicos Theodosiou, told CNA Tuesday that time is running against them, explaining that many of the relatives of the missing are already too old to wait for news about the fate of their beloved ones.

We express our concern over the pace of identifications of remains. Unfortunately many parents of missing persons are in their 80s or 90s, many of them have died, without knowing anything about the fate of their beloved children Theodosiou told CNA.

He explained that experts are working at the exhumation sites in the southern government controlled areas of the Republic as well as in the northern Turkish occupied areas, forensic scientists are at the Institute of Neurology and Genetics for DNA identifications and at the Anthropological Laboratory in the UN buffer zone.

Theodosiou said he would like to see better coordination between them. He said that at present there are eight teams of experts working at exhumation sites whereas in the past there were only two.

Furthermore, he expressed concern over the continuation of the work of the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP), (a tripartite committee comprising a UN representative and one from each of the islands two communities -Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot-), if the Turkish Cypriot regime in occupied Cyprus decides to suspend the work of the CMP in this part of the country, should in their view developments in the Cyprus issue call for such action.

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