VIOLENCE IN CYPRUS

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27911, 7 March 1956, Page 13

VIOLENCE IN CYPRUS

Wave Of Bomb

Explosions (Rec. 8 p.m.) NICOSIA, March. 5. Violence continued in Cyprus today. An unexploded bomb was found in the Yerolakos police station, four miles from Nicosia, bringing to 14 the total of bombs exploded or planted in various parts of the island overnight. Several thousand Cypriots working on military installations near Limassol came out on strike in protest against the shooting last night of a 17-year-old Cypriot, George Charalabous. but an official announcement stated that the youth was. in fact, kilted by a bomb he was letting off. He had fallen just as a shot was fired by security forces, and “it was assumed, therefore, that he had been killed by the shot,” the statement said. "But the post-mortem has revealed that he died as a result of being hit by a splinter from his own bomb, which penetrated his heart.” The strikers gathered outside the hospital today, waiting for the youth’s body to be brought out. They were told, however, that he had been taken to his native village. Kyperounda, in south-west Cyprus, the night, and buried this morning. All shops closed in Limassol this afternoon. Cypriots paraded through the main streets, shouting anti-British slogans, and hoisted the Greek flag in the town’s central square before dispersing. Two Greek Cypriot girl students, aged 15 and 17, were each fined £5 at a special Court in Nicosia today for possessing and distributing seditious leaflets. They were the first girls to be convicted of this offence.