Panagiotis Kapsis

He was born in Rizokarpaso¹, in the province of Famagusta, on March 23, 1939.

He was killed on October 13, 1958 in an ambush he set up with his fellow fighters outside Rizokarpaso.

Panagiotis Kapsis studied at the Boys’ School and the Rizokarpaso Gymnasium, from which he graduated in June 1958 and was preparing to continue his studies at the Athens Academy of Physical Education.

In the summer of 1956, he joined the ranks of Alkimis Neolea EOKA, and in 1957, as a team leader of ANE, he switched to the impact teams of his school. He was an inspiration to his classmates for the zeal he showed in the game and for his athletic abilities.

In June 1958, upon graduation, he transferred to the ANE extracurricular team, which also functioned as a reserve strike team. He was also active in the Free Labor Union of Rizokarpas and worked a lot for the organization and rights of the workers.

On October 13, 1958, Panagiotis Kapsis with his fellow fighters Ioannis Tanis, Nikolas Chronia and Pavlos Dimitriou carried out a bomb attack against a phalanx of military vehicles, which they expected to return from Apostolos Andreas, in the location “Guppa” in the area of Vikla, in a hill outside Rizokarpasos. Around one in the afternoon they hit the phalanx with three grenades.

As he testified at the inquest into Kapsi’s death, Sergeant Hyson, who was in charge of the motorcade, ordered the soldiers to stand down immediately after the bombs went off, expecting a gun attack to follow. When this did not happen, he unleashed his men in pursuit of the assailants with a plan to surround them on the ridges. At the same time, he also covered the entrances to the village. The chase lasted more than two hours. In the meantime, one of his competitors, Ioannis Tanis, was seriously wounded and arrested.

In about an hour Kapsis tried to slip into the village through a narrow passage between a house and some prickly pear trees. There he was hit by the bullets of an English soldier, who was covering the entrance hidden in a bush and fell pierced by bullets. The approaching English soldiers shot him repeatedly and showed their smallness by mutilating his body.

A monument used to exist for the hero in his home village, yet it was destroyed in 1974 during or after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

For more information about Rizokarpaso: http://rizokarpasso.org.uk