Children whose parents were forced to send them to Greece after the 1974 Turkish invasion for their own safety are “a tragic story” that has been kept under wraps for decades, mainly out of guilt, President Nikos Christodoulides said on Friday.

He said there should be no guilt because “they were forced to send them, to save them, to create hope and prospects, when those parents lost everything in one day.”

Christodoulides received a group of people who had been sent to Greece as unaccompanied children in 1974 and a delegation from Ileia prefecture, led by Bishop Athanasios II, saying it was time for their story to be made known.

He added that an event would be held on Sunday for the only person – Panayiota – who didn’t return to Cyprus in 1979. She died suddenly a few months after arriving in Greece.

Their fostering in Greece, the president said, was a church initiative.

Bishop Athanasios said fostering the children was an act of solidarity and that, then bishop Athanasios I, had taken in about 500 children.