DHERYNIA: Cypriot officials opened two new border crossings Monday for the first time in eight years, the latest push for peace by the two sides after UN-backed talks collapsed last year.
Dozens of people from the island’s Greek Cypriot south streamed across the eastern Dherynia border post, walking past United Nations peacekeepers into the breakaway Turkish-backed north.
At the same time, the Lefka or Aplici crossing opened in the northwest of the Mediterranean island.
“I am very pleased,” said 65-year-old Turkish-Cypriot Hasan Uzun about the move. “I am sick, but I wanted to come here and see this beautiful day with my eyes. I am very emotional now.”
Ahead of the reopening of the Dherynia crossing, soldiers removed barriers wrapped in rusty barbed wire while a small group of riot police stood by.
Despite arguments breaking out among onlookers in the run-up to the midday (1000 GMT) opening, the crowd passed peacefully across the border.
The wreckage of a car could be seen off the main road in the UN-patrolled buffer zone, while nearby signs warned of mines beyond a barbed wire fence.
“Today is good day for Cyprus,” said Elizabeth Spehar, head of the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus.
“These crossing points will play an important role in helping to increase people to people contacts, contributing to build much needed trust and confidence between the communities on the island.”
The development is also seen as a vital step to reviving peace negotiations, which collapsed in acrimony in July 2017.
“It’s another asset to the peace talks,” said Chris Charalambous, who was just 18 when war broke out more than 44 years ago.
Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta then in power in Athens seeking to unite the island with Greece.
For the first time since fleeing the conflict, Charalambous was looking forward to seeing his house which now lies in a military zone beyond the border posts.
“I’m just going to walk down and then I walk back, I don’t know if I can stand spending time in the north,” he told AFP.
While houses still line the road to the north of the checkpoint where Turkish and Turkish Cypriot flags fly, trees and bushes now cling to the abandoned buildings.
Goats were grazing in the former residential area, which remains fenced off behind wire and red military signs.
“All these houses are destroyed... time destroys everything, 44 years is too much,” said 72-year-old Iacovos Coshandis.
Before the war, he used to walk to school along the road and said he still hopes to see Cyprus reunited.
The island has been divided for more than four decades and the two communities lived isolated from one another until Turkish Cypriot authorities cleared the way for the free movement of people following a previous round of talks in 2003.
In 1996, Dherynia was the scene of riots when two Greek Cypriots were killed by Turkish forces in one of the worst incidents on the cease-fire line.
But despite being pleased that the Dherynia crossing had been opened, resident Helen said she felt anxious about going to see the conflict-hit area she once traveled through daily.
“I think the political situation is the problem. The people, we are friends, because we are all Cypriots,” she said, declining to give her surname.
The decision to open the two border crossings came after President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci met last month in the UN-protected area in the divided capital Nicosia.
Can Emre Cagin, a 21-year-old Turkish Cypriot, said he was feeling excited after waiting for years for the border crossing to open.
“I think this is a really important moment for us Cypriots,” he said, as he and his mother waited to have their documents checked.
“I’m going to see that side for the first time, and I’m going to live that peace feeling inside me.”
New border crossings open in divided Cyprus, first in 8 years
New border crossings open in divided Cyprus, first in 8 years
- Dozens of people from the island’s Greek Cypriot south streamed across the eastern Dherynia border post
- At Dherynia soldiers removed barriers wrapped in rusty barbed wire while a small group of riot police stood by
Agonizing wait as Switzerland works to identify New Year’s fire victims
- Authorities begin moving bodies from burned-out bar in luxury ski resor Crans-Montana
- At least 40 people were killed in one of Switzerland's worst tragedies
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland: Families endured an agonizing wait for news of their loved ones Friday as Swiss investigators rushed to identify victims of a ski resort fire at a New Year’s celebration that killed at least 40 people.
Authorities began moving bodies from the burned-out bar in the luxury ski resort town Crans-Montana late Friday morning, with the first silver-colored hearse rolling into the funeral center in nearby Sion shortly after 11:00 am (1000 GMT), AFP journalists saw.
Around 115 people were also injured in the fire, many of them critical condition.
As the scope of the tragedy — one of Switzerland’s worst — began to sink in, Crans-Montana appeared enveloped in a stunned silence.
“The atmosphere is heavy,” Dejan Bajic, a 56-year-old tourist from Geneva who has been coming to the resort since 1974, told AFP.
“It’s like a small village; everyone knows someone who knows someone who’s been affected,” he said.
It is not yet clear what set off the blaze at Le Constellation, a bar popular with young tourists, at around 1:30 am (0030 GMT) Thursday.
Bystanders described scenes of panic and chaos as people tried to break the windows to escape and others, covered in burns, poured into the street.
‘Screaming in pain’
Edmond Cocquyt, a Belgian tourist, told AFP he had seen “bodies lying here, ... covered with a white sheet,” and “young people, totally burned, who were still alive... Screaming in pain.”
The exact death toll was still being established.
And it could rise, with canton president Mathias Reynard telling the regional newspaper Wallizer Bote that at least 80 of the 115 injured were in critical condition.
Swiss authorities warned it could take days to identify everyone who perished, an agonizing wait for family and friends.
Condolences poured in from around the world, including from Pope Leo XIV, who offered “compassion and solidarity” to victims’ families.
Online, desperate appeals abound to find the missing.
“We’ve tried to reach our friends. We took loads of photos and posted them on Instagram, Facebook, all possible social networks to try to find them,” said Eleonore, 17. “But there’s nothing. No response.”
‘The apocalypse’
The exact number of people who were at the bar when it went up in flames remains unclear.
Le Constellation had a capacity of 300 people, plus another 40 people on its terrace, according to the Crans-Montana website.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin, who took office on Thursday, called the fire “a calamity of unprecedented, terrifying proportions” and announced that flags would be flown at half-mast for five days.
“We thought it was just a small fire — but when we got there, it was war,” Mathys, from the neighboring village of Chermignon-d’en-Bas, told AFP. “That’s the only word I can use to describe it: the apocalypse.”
Authorities have declined to speculate on what caused the tragedy, saying only that it was not an attack.
Several witness accounts, broadcast by various media, pointed to sparklers mounted on champagne bottles and held aloft by restaurant staff as part of a regular “show” for patrons.
‘Dramatic’
Pictures and videos shared on social media also showed sparklers on champagne bottles held into the air, as an orange glow began spreading across the ceiling.
One video showed the flames advancing quickly as revellers initially continued to dance.
One young man playfully attempted to extinguish the flames with a large white cloth, but the scene became panic-stricken as people scrambled and screamed in the dark against a backdrop of smoke and flames.
The canton’s chief prosecutor, Beatrice Pilloud, said investigators would examine whether the bar met safety standards.
Red and white caution tape, flowers and candles adorned the street outside, while police shielded the site with white screens.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who said 13 Italians had been injured in the fire, and six remained missing, was among those to lay flowers at the site.
The French foreign ministry said nine French citizens figured among the injured, and eight others remained unaccounted for.
After emergency units at local hospitals filled, many of the injured were transported across Switzerland and beyond.
Patients are being treated in Italy, France and Germany, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his country was ready to provide “specialized medical care to 14 injured.”
Multiple sources told AFP the bar owners were French nationals: a couple originally from Corsica who, according to a relative, are safe, but have been unreachable since the tragedy.
