60 years ago the Swedish UN attended a booby trap scene

Readers mail....

From Anders Arvidsson a Former Swedish UN Peacekeeper in Cyprus…….

From the diary of Swedish UN soldier Lars Ingvar Lindblom

Cyprus 21st July 1964

Jeansson and me walked down to Mansoura to collect the mail. Sergeant Svensson had made a delicious breakfast. The Greek Cypriots sent a booby trap parcel to the Turkish Cypriots in Ayios Theodoros, three died and one was wounded in the blast. We are on permanent alert on the radio now.

There are lots of Aiyos Theodoros type villages in Cyprus, this is the one, since August 1964 has been abandoned and situated between Mansoura and Piyenia in Tilliria area.

Murder of Turkish Cypriots by a booby trap bomb

Hakki Önen born 1944 in Nicosia and a fighter in Erenköy area was present when the bomb exploded he recalls the day like this.

Before the Greek attack in August, we could move freely in the area. We raised roadblocks on the roads in our area. At the checkpoint where I was on duty a Greek Cypriot bus passed every morning with workers on their way to Pyrgos and it returned punctually every evening. One evening on its way back one of the men dropped a parcel from one of the windows when it passed.

We walked over the road to it. It was wrapped in colourful gift paper just as if it was a nice present. We started to speculate what it could contain; maybe it was a gift from the Greek Cypriots showing gratitude because we allowed them to pass every day without a problem.

Might it be that some of them still wanted to be our friends? Someone uttered that we ought to open the parcel. Others were against it; it can be a booby trap to explode when opened. In the end, one of my friends, Süleyman Uluchamgil said he was convinced it was a gift and he offered to open it.

His argumentation was that if it really should be a bomb, it would kill someone and then we would not let them pass through anymore. They are dependant on their jobs in Pyrgos and without passage there would not be any wages, an idiotic thing to do, he concluded.

We moved all of us away and watched while he bent on his knee and started to open it.

The explosion that followed was very violent, Süleymans's body took the most of the blast but two of our friends standing close by were badly hurt, and two others received minor wounds. Hakki was protected by a wall and escaped unhurt.

The Swedish UN arrive to give help.

It takes the Swedish UN ambulance only 10- 15 minutes to come from the Company camp in Kato Pyrgos to Mansoura where the victims had been brought. The injured are laid on a porch at one of the houses in Mansoura where the first aid is given by the Swedish soldiers and medics. Süleyman’s body, he was probably killed at once in the explosion, was put on the back of one of the OP´s 1,5-tonne lorries and driven away to the Turkish hospital in Lefka. The two other wounded, Salahi and Nagi are later transported to Nicosia with one of the UN´s helicopters, Salahi is dead on arrival.

The slightly injured Hüsein Celal recalls.

“When the UN soldiers had taken care of my friends and transported them away they also looked after me, I had a morphine shot from one of the Swedes.

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