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A Refugee Returns to Northern Cyprus After 47 Years
The Ghost of Famagusta
At the age of 15, Tasoula Hadjitofi had to flee her home in Cyprus.
- Timofey Neshitov
- Spiegel
Forty-seven years after the war, Turkey has finally allowed her to visit the Greek quarter in Famagusta for the first time.
What is left of her childhood home?
One day in mid-July, a woman in a brown summer dress passes through two checkpoints and reaches Famagusta, a city on the eastern coast of Cyprus.
She gets out of her rental car and stands at a fence – the third and last checkpoint.
The police, drinking Turkish coffee, clock the golden cross the woman wears around her neck.
The woman’s eyes search the empty street behind them.
She sees the façades of…