The climax of the drama of Maria Stavrou: “After 4-5 hours, we saw the United Nations and the Turkish army entering the area where we were… An Englishwoman had told me, ‘I cannot save you, I will save the child. Make a collar with her name and where to deliver it.’ I cut a collar and wrote ‘Niki Stavrou, aged so and so, you will deliver her to Patroklos Stavrou there or if anything happens in Cyprus, to my parents in Athens.’

The moment I put the collar on my daughter, I realized that this Englishwoman was very vigorous, and I thought that if she took my child, she would either throw her away or keep her and not give her back. I said, ‘I won’t hand over the child, I will fight to the end; at most, she will die with me.’ I was holding on to her. I was holding the child, and the Austrian said to me, ‘It’s not in your interest; they are Austrians, and I spoke to them, from the UN.’ They told me, ‘The streets are littered with the bodies of dead Greeks… the tanks are passing over. Try to leave with the English…’

They distributed us… I was left alone, and I feel a hand behind me, a push towards the English, it was the Austrian who says to me: ‘Go there.’ I look at him… and he says, ‘Don’t discuss it, go there.’ I run with the child, in front of me were two Englishwomen; I remember there were two sisters, and one was named Agatha.

As I was running, out of fear of the helicopters, the baby began to cry. She turns and sees me, this Englishwoman, rushes at me and starts shouting: ‘She is Greek, she is Greek,’ and throws something at me… I try to get up, and the Englishwoman rushes at me. She stands up, and as I put my hands up to climb, she was pulling my hands to throw me out. The Englishwoman started shouting: ‘She is Greek… she is Cypriot.’