Police piecing together evidence on bones found in Paphos

Police on Tuesday are continuing to gather information on the origins of the skull and bones found in Koloni.

In addition to the bones, police scouting teams have also collected clothing and a silver necklace with a heart pendant from the site.

The bones seem to indicate a person aged 40 to 50 years old.

Foul play has not been ruled out.

Police, in coordination with the civil defence, found the bones on Monday, near the location where a farmer had found a skull the day before.

The owner of the livestock unit in the area found the human skull outside his premises at about 10am on Sunday.

Police suspect the bones found could potentially belong to the same person, and the findings have been sent for testing by an anthropologist and a state pathologist.

The area has been cordoned off since Sunday while investigations using sniffer dogs continue.

Police are cross-checking their records of missing persons over the past ten years, to help identify the remains. According to authorities, the skull does not seem to belong to a person who died recently, but official results will be announced following the testing.

Paphos police spokesman, Michalis Nicolaou, said on Monday that the bones are not those of a person missing in the aftermath of the 1974 Turkish invasion.

He added, however, that identifying these bones required coordination with an anthropologist and for this reason the committee on missing persons (CMP) had been contacted to help.

“There is no question, based on the information that the police have so far, that this is a person who went missing during the hostilities and the invasion of 1974,” Nikolaou said.

“We are collecting information, and are awaiting the completion of the genetic testing,” he added.