The Turkish Cypriot community donated €120,000 on Thursday to the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) in support of its efforts to identify and return the remains of those lost during the intercommunal conflicts.

Since 2006, the community has contributed a total of €803,000 to the CMP, which relies on donations to carry out its bicommunal mission.

Established in April 1981 under United Nations auspices following calls in two UN General Assembly resolutions to form a mechanism addressing missing persons, the CMP was created through an agreement between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

After becoming active in 2006, the CMP set out to locate and identify a total of 2,002 people who went missing during events of 1963-64, and 1974. To date, it has exhumed 1,707 bodies and identified 1,057 from the official list, alongside 216 others, returning their remains for dignified burials.

Of those identified, 296 were Turkish Cypriots and 761 were Greek Cypriots.