Vasos Panagi

Born in Neo Chorio¹, Paphos district, on February 17, 1929.

He died on November 4, 1956, in his village.

Vasos Panagi finished the primary school of his village and worked as a laborer and shepherd. With the start of the fight, he joined the ranks of EOKA and was a member of the Rifle Strike Team of Neo Chorio. He acted in the concealment and distribution of explosive material, which together with his fellow competitors, they took from shells collected in the “Arnaoutis” area of Akamas, which was used as a firing range by the British Navy in the Second World War. He took part in sabotage against the British, in ambushes and bombings.

In May 1956, together with his fellow fighters, they cleared bushes and prepared in the location Kapsala of Akama a landing strip for an airplane, which was planned to secretly transport from Italy armaments for the needs of EOKA.

On November 3, 1956, the Neo Chorio EOKA group attacked English soldiers, who restricted their movements in the area, due to the frequent attacks they received from EOKA. The leader of the group, Georgios Stylianou, advised to raise a Greek flag at the village school and to destroy the post box that carried the British royal emblem. The police authorities of Polis Chrysochous were notified of the events and military forces were sent to the village, at the entrance of which their vehicles fell into an EOKA ambush set up by the heroes Georgios Stylianou, Vasos Panagi and Georgios Anastasi. They immobilized the second vehicle of the phalanx by detonating an electric mine, because in the first one the security forces had two of their countrymen who they had taken as human shields from the road.

The English soldiers, together with Turkish auxiliaries who had received the attack, pursued them. They had moved quite far and were about to take cover behind a mountain peak, when Georgios Stylianou, the leader of the expedition, was wounded in the leg. His two competitors turned back and took him. As they retreated, they were overtaken by the soldiers, who opened fire on them and drove them to level ground. There they shot Georgios Anastasiou in the head. They carried the dead into the village and forced the inhabitants to walk past their mutilated bodies, which they continued to shoot and spear. They then hung them on their vehicles and drove them around Polis Chrysochous².