A hotel in occupied Lapithos, Cyprus is being torn down under the supervision of the Committee on Missing Persons after ...

A hotel in occupied Lapithos, Cyprus is being torn down under the supervision of the Committee on Missing Persons after a construction worker came forward to reveal that human remains were found during foundation works in the 1980s and deliberately covered up. The contractor at the time ordered the bones to be buried under the building and pressed on with construction, ignoring pleas to stop. The hotel never finished and eventually passed to a new contractor due to financial difficulties. When the CMP reached out, the new owner agreed to let the committee's archaeologists oversee the demolition and excavate the site if needed. Two CMP teams have been on the ground since Monday, November 2, with the Greek Cypriot CMP representative Leonidas Pantelides saying the committee is "optimistic." This case is one of several the CMP is working through across the occupied north. Eight soldiers are believed to be buried in a well in the garden of a property that was illegally purchased by a German national, who repeatedly refused the CMP access. The property has since been sold, and the CMP is now in talks with the new owner to get permission to search the site. Because the well is no longer visible, ground-penetrating radar will be used to locate it. The scale of the broader mission remains staggering. Of 2,002 Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot missing persons from the conflicts of 1963-64 and 1974, 1,090 have been identified so far. So far in 2026, the remains of 28 individuals have been identified, more than double the 12 identified in all of 2025. Around 300 additional cases are still under active investigation, with roughly 100 more already cleared and queued for excavation. #Cyprus #MissingPersons #OccupiedCyprus