The Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) has said the new infusion of €2.6 million from the EU would aid in identifying and returning the remains of the missing in 2025.

Thanking the European Commission, the CMP said the EU has been its largest financial contributor, with a total support of €41.1 million since 2007.

So far, 1,051 missing persons from both Cypriot communities have been identified and returned to their families for dignified burials.

The new funding would help in the ongoing struggle to bring an end “to the uncertainty which has affected the families for so many years”.

The CMP was established in 1981 by an agreement between the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot leaders, under the auspices of the United Nations, while the CMP Project on the Exhumation, Identification and Return of Remains of Missing Persons in Cyprus became operational in 2006.

Its mandate is to exhume, identify through DNA testing, and return the remains to relatives.

Some 492 Turkish Cypriots and 1,510 Greek Cypriots, were officially listed as missing both during the inter-communal fighting of 1963-1964 and during the Turkish invasion in 1974.

According data on the CMP website by November 30, 2024 out of the total of 2,002 missing persons 1,688 were exhumed and 1,051 have been identified.

Out of 1,510 Greek Cypriot missing persons 756 have been identified and 754 are still missing. From the 492 Turkish Cypriot missing persons 295 have been identified and 197 are still missing.