Funerals held for bodies washed up in Karpasia

Funerals were held on Wednesday for the four bodies which were found washed up on the coast of Karpasia in recent weeks.

The bodies remain unidentified, though clothing found on them suggests they were Syrian in origin.

The funerals were held at the Rizokarpaso Turkish Cypriot cemetery and attended by the village imam, Rizokarpaso police station chief Mustafa Yildiz and police sergeant Huseyin Sevindik, as well as some municipal employees from the Yialousa and Karpasia Municipality and private citizens.

Three of the bodies had been found in the space of 11 days during January, with the fourth being found on Monday.

“The dead bodies washed up on the shore in recent days and the findings that the clothes on a few of these bodies are Syrian-made point to an urgent and serious humanitarian situation,” the Refugee Rights Association, a non-governmental organisation in the north, said on Tuesday.