Andreas Onisiforou

He was born in the village of Kolossi¹, Limassol district, in 1934.

He was killed by the British on February 13, 1956, in his village.

Andreas Onisiforou finished the primary school of his village and graduated from a secondary school. He was an employee in the antiquities department and worked as a guard at the Kolossi Fortress² . He joined EOKA at the start of the struggle and worked with his distant uncle’s family in bomb making.

On February 13, 1956, the residents of Kolossi clashed for the second time with the soldiers, who came and took down the Greek flag from the primary school of their village, which they had raised expecting the British to attack them. The women attacked them in an organized manner. The soldiers were firing into the air. Andreas threw his jacket with the insignia of the government employee in an oven, so that the British would not force him to take down the flag and was involved in the stoning of his eighteen-year-old competitor Eleni Filippou.

The soldiers shot Eleni in the leg, whom they had identified as leading the previous attack. Her mother, who was next to her, picked her up in her arms and her leg was hanging off. Andreas rushed into the evil and grabbed her from her hands. At that very moment they shot him from close range, hitting him in the chest.

They were both taken to a clinic in Limassol, where Eleni remained for hospitalization for which the doctor refused to take money. The inhabitants of the village went in groups and worked on the doctor’s estates, to repay his offer.

The funeral of Andreas Onisiforou took place in an atmosphere of national excitement. Three months later he was followed to the grave by his fiancee, who immediately after his death contracted leukemia.