The Last Divided Capital In Europe

We took some visitors to Nicosia the other day and you would think that after seeing the Green Line (the line that devides the walled city of Nicosia) about a hundred times, you would have become a bit hardened to all the bloodshed that Cyprus saw years ago. 

But the pain is still visible in the shattered glass and sandbagged houses.

Like most wars this one is not an easy one to forget. But unlike some others, for those of us who did not witness it, this one is an easy one to relive. The houses are deserted and have been left as they were that day in 1974; you can still see the shrapnel marks and the broken windows.

It is not about the ethics and morality of a political war but about the legacy of human misery that any war leaves behind it. The wail of an orphaned child, the pain of a helpless widow and the loss etched in the wrinkles of an old mother is forever fresh and heartrending.

As we saw the pictures on Ledra Street and walked along the green line, we were all too aware of the havoc this war has wreaked and how many lives it changed forever