Georgios Anastasi

He was born in Neo Chorio¹, Paphos district, in 1933.

He was killed on November 4, 1956 in his village, after an ambush against the British.

Georgios Anastasi, after graduating from the primary school of his village, worked as a fisherman. He was one of the first in his village to join the EOKA struggle and worked quietly as a feeder and escort for rebels in his area. He was a member of the Neo Chorio Paphos Rifle Strike Team and was excellent at throwing grenades. He took part in acts of sabotage against the British and was involved in the collection of shells from the Arnaoutis area of Akamas², which was used as a firing range for the British navy in World War II. The explosive material contained in the shells was used to manufacture mines and grenades for the needs of EOKA.

In May and June 1956, together with his fellow fighters, they cleared bushes and prepared an airplane landing strip in the Akama area, for dropping weapons from an airplane or landing it. The armament was planned to be sent to EOKA secretly from Italy.

On November 4, 1956, Georgios Anastasi, together with Georgios Stylianou and Vasos Panagi, set up an ambush at the entrance of their village, against the English, whom they provoked to go up from Poli Chrysochous to Neo Chorio, when at their instigation, the their fellow villagers destroyed the emblem of Great Britain on a letterbox and raised the Greek flag. With the immobilization of the second vehicle of the British, who succeeded with the explosion of an electric mine, they dropped the two hand grenades they were holding, one of which did not explode, and left. They did not hit the first car in which the police authorities of the area were riding, because in it two of their compatriots were being transported standing up, whom the English used as human shields.

The English soldiers, together with the Turkish auxiliaries who accompanied them, pursued them. And while the three fighters had already moved far enough away and were about to take cover behind a mountain peak, their leader Georgios Stylianou was wounded in the leg by an English sniper and they turned back and took him. As they were leaving, they were overtaken by the soldiers, who opened fire on them and arrested them. They took them under a carob tree, where they shot Eorgios Stylianou in the head and stabbed Georgios Anastasi and Vasos Panagi to death. Then they took them to the village square and forced their fellow villagers to walk past their mutilated bodies, which they continued to shoot and spear. They then hung them in their vehicles and drove them around Polis Chrysochous³