Week 5 is possibly the most eventful week so far! The Limassol Night (High) School, organized the aforementioned event focusing on two very special areas of Cyprus: the closed city of Famagusta and the Nicosia International Airport. While Famagusta is occupied by the Turkish forces, has been fenced and is frequently used as a bargaining card on the negotiating table, the Nicosia International Airport is actually in the UN Protected Area in the buffer zone close to the home of the UNFICYP. We usually refer to them as lifeless but in reality they are only deserted by humans as Mr Themos Demetriou correctly mentioned in his talk about the plan to redevelop the city of Famagusta. Indeed what both sites share is that the (unwilling) absence of the human element has created a void that was covered over the years by nature, both flora and fauna.
The event, so well-organised by Assistant Head teacher Ms Clio Lyssiotou and Languages Teacher Ms Agathi Erotocritou, was under the auspices of the Minister of Education and Culture and was divided in two parts, separated by a live music break by a student band. The first part was about the Nicosia International Airport. The first speaker was Captain Marneros with an emotional talk, sharing his experience before and during that last civil flight to the Nicosia International Airport on the 20th of July 1974. While in London, he repeatedly reported back to his superiors in Cyprus what British media were reporting about the expected invasion, but they insisted to fly back to Nicosia, even without the scheduled stop in Rome. As the Captain, it was ultimately his decision and did that stop-over in Rome, hoping for a change in his orders, nonetheless to save a £50m Cyprus Airways aircraft (a SunJet Trident). The aircraft was basically travelling empty, with two families on board- a Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot- 7 passengers in total.
The most fascinating and at the same tragic fact of his witness report is that during his approach in the Cypriot airspace he was able to spot on the radar the 6th US fleet off the coast of Pafos, Turkish ships off the coast of Kyrenia and asked for permission to fly over the Apostle Andreas peninsula in order to explore the situation further. There in the Famagusta gulf he saw the British fleet on standby to evacuate British nationals if need be. His last cry for aborting landing and returning to Rome was greeted by a refusal. He later found out that this refusal was given at gunpoint from a Greek military officer of the coup.
The most fascinating and at the same tragic fact of his witness report is that during his approach in the Cypriot airspace he was able to spot on the radar the 6th US fleet off the coast of Pafos, Turkish ships off the coast of Kyrenia and asked for permission to fly over the Apostle Andreas peninsula in order to explore the situation further. There in the Famagusta gulf he saw the British fleet on standby to evacuate British nationals if need be. His last cry for aborting landing and returning to Rome was greeted by a refusal. He later found out that this refusal was given at gunpoint from a Greek military officer of the coup.
The next talk was about the project with Dr Stelios Yiatros presented the rationale and scope of the project, what was expected by the students and what was the expected timeline. To conclude Dr Yiatros said that this is the first time in years a group of people is working to propose the redevelopment of the airport as a hub and the aim of the project is to commence this dialogue with whoever is interested to participate and help. The presentation can be found in the gallery seen here and can be downloaded as pdf below.
sy_pres.pdf |
The Nicosia International Airport closed with a music break.
Part II - Famagusta
The second part of the event focused on the closed City of Famagusta, which has been empty of human influence for the past 40 years. Firsty Mr Simos Ioannou, Deputy Mayor of Famagusta described life in Famagusta prior to the invasion.
The second part of the event focused on the closed City of Famagusta, which has been empty of human influence for the past 40 years. Firsty Mr Simos Ioannou, Deputy Mayor of Famagusta described life in Famagusta prior to the invasion.
This was followed by Mr Themos Demetriou talk about the Famagusta Redevelopment Plan, which is a plan for immediate action, should the opportunity arise to return to the city. Mr Demetriou, discussed the role of the government in this (provide guidelines and not prescribe) and paid particular attention to the need to record and monitor the deserted homes and infrastructure as well as how nature filled the void left by humans creating new ecosystems.
The event ended by taking questions from the audience. One of them, by one of the crew members of Mr Marneros was particularly emotional saying that she would love to fly again out of that airport and Dr Yiatros responded that this is aligned with our aim and hopefully within the next few years we can see some of these proposal to go through.