A painful chapter in the turbulent history of Cyprus reaches closure for three Greek Cypriot women who will bury their dead today 34 years after they were killed by Turkish troops in 1974.

Charita Mandoles last saw her husband and father alive on July 21 of that year, as prisoners of Turkish troops who invaded the ethnically divided Mediterranean island a day before.

Mrs Mandoles, now 62, has worn mourning black since she was 27. She and two sisters will officially be classed as widows after the funerals take place in the port town of Limassol.

As Turkish Cypriots prepare to celebrate the July 20 anniversary of the landing, Mrs Mandoles and sisters Yiannoula and Maria will take delivery of their husbands in small wooden boxes.

The men's remains were found in a mass grave in northern Cyprus, an area largely out of bounds to Greek Cypriots whose brief coup triggered the Turkish invasion.

"My husband doesn't even have a skull," she said yesterday. "We have bones from his legs and an arm bone. He doesn't have anything. What am I to bury?" The last time Mrs Mandoles saw her husband he screamed at her to lie low, as Turkish troops led a group of 38 Greek Cypriot civilians into an olive grove, separated the men from the women and children, then sprayed them with bullets.

Women and children fled, not daring to look back. Since then, the flicker of hope that Andreas Mandoles was still alive was snuffed out last month when a team of scientists working under UN supervision identified his remains.

"I always thought there was a 99.5 per cent chance he was dead. I allowed myself a bit of hope," Mrs Mandoles said. "I wanted to touch him, feel him to see for myself."

More than 2,000 Greek and Turkish Cypriots are still missing, as their communities gingerly try to heal past wounds. Leaders of the two sides are expected to announce a relaunch of peace talks in September, at a meeting scheduled for July 25.

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