Artemos Franjeskou
Timeline Events
He was born in the village of Athienou1, Larnaca district, in 1931.
He was killed on the night of 11 to 12 August 1956, by the ignition of explosive material.
Artemos Franjeskou finished the primary school of his village and was a mechanic. He studied social systems a lot and was an ideological socialist. From the beginning of the struggle, he took the oath of EOKA in the Metochion of Kykkos together with other fellow villagers, of whom he assumed leadership under the pseudonym “Athos”.
In November 1955, together with his fellow fighters, he carried out his first ambush against the British in their village.
In January 1956, at the head of his group, he collected twenty-one hunting rifles, which he distributed to the surrounding villages.
On May 21, 1956, they set up a second ambush against the British on the Athienou-Pyrogi road, in which they also used bombs of their own manufacture.
At the suggestion of a fellow village chemist, they lit vine twigs in an oven and, when they became red hot coals, they closed the oven and extinguished the coals, without necessarily wetting them. They then ground the coals and mixed their powder with sulfur and nitre. With this type of gunpowder they filled their bombs, with which they also supplied the surrounding villages. In this work, which was done in Franjeskou's house, his parents and siblings also helped.
On the night of August 11-12, 1956, while Artemos and other associates were making gunpowder in his house, a spark suddenly fell into the tin box containing the flammable material.
“Artemos,” recounts a fellow fighter, “grabbing death in his arms, rushed outside and saved us. We saw our leader burning like a candle. The next day, before burying him, we carried him honorably on our shoulders through all the streets of the village, wrapped in the Greek flag.”
The death of Artemos Franjeskou, like the death of other fighters in similar circumstances, is indicative of the difficulties encountered by EOKA fighters in the titanic effort for the freedom of Cyprus.
