Three hundred Turkish Cypriots crossed the Green Line yesterday to have their blood typed in the search for a bone marrow donor to save the life of a six-year-old Greek Cypriot boy suffering from leukaemia.
Since the Karaiskakio Foundation launched its campaign 10 days ago more than 50,000 Greek Cypriots have had their blood tested in the hope of finding a match for Andreas Vassiliou. The hunt is also on for a match for a 13-year-old Turkish Cypriot boy, Kemal Saracoglu, at present undergoing treatment in London.
So far, the foundation has been able to test only about 2,000 samples but as from today they will be able to handle 1,000 a day with new equipment rushed in from the US. "Cyprus will be one of the most advanced countries in the world for testing blood," stated Mr George Penintataex, a volunteer with the foundation.
Businessmen, professionals, housewives, academics and students filed into the former ballroom of the Ledra Palace hotel, now a UN barracks, located in the narrow buffer zone between the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot controlled zones of the divided island.
Among the first was Mr Kemal Asih (18), a banking and finance student at the Eastern Mediterranean University. "It's necessary to help each other. We must live together on this small island," he said. A strong supporter of reconciliation, he said he had attended a bicommunal gathering of 500 students at the mixed village of Pyla on Sunday.
At a bicommunal youth festival also held on Sunday at the village of Pergamos, 200 Turkish Cypriot students donated blood. Ms Aishe Evren observed: "We are the same people. We were divided by the great powers, now we must join together in this humanitarian effort. It is a shame that our city is the last divided capital."
Mr Sardar Denktash, the son of the veteran Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr Rauf Denktash, and head of the Democratic Party, said that the response showed the "good intentions" of the Turkish Cypriot side towards Greek Cypriots. Another politician to give a sample was Mr Mehmet Ali Talat, president of the Republican Turkish Party, who is among a half dozen presidential candidates standing against the senior Mr Denktash next month.
In the opinion of Ms Ayla Gurel of the Bicommunal Academic Society, which launched the effort, "many more Turkish Cypriots would contribute if the medical team visited towns in the north".
Dr Efstathios Eftstathiou, the Greek-Cypriot chairman of the bone marrow transplant centre, said the readiness of hundreds of ordinary Turkish Cypriots to donate "is a clear indication that Greek and Turkish Cypriots want to enjoy normal relations without the enforced partition".
Mr Marinos Ioannides, the society's co-ordinator on the Greek-Cypriot side, stated: "This is the first time we got together for such a purpose since the 1974 invasion. We academics must launch the initial phase of reconciliation as academics have done elsewhere: in Germany, between the Palestinians and Israel, in Ireland. We must come and bring our students. We have to get the message to the young people."
"Wouldn't it be lovely if there is a Turkish Cypriot match for Andreas and a Greek Cypriot match for Kemal," remarked Mr Penintataex.
He added: "Blood has divided us and blood will reunite us."