Inside the heart-wrenching story behind teddy bears guarding 450 infants' graves in Cypriot graveyard
LARNACA, CYPRUS: Visitors to the Cypriot graveyard are often taken aback when they witness an army of teddy bears standing guard over the graves of more than 450 newborns and infants. Buried at the Dhekelia British military cemetery, the little ones are the babies and young children of British families, who died while their parents were stationed in Cyprus in the 1960s and early 1970s.
The sight of the graveyard had been terrifying for decades until last year when Annie Macmillan Davies, 61, started the initiative of honoring the little ones’ graves with adorable colorful teddy bears. The retired nursery head was visiting her parents' graves in the cemetery when she realized that many hadn't been visited in decades, a sad reminder of how military families had to leave their deceased loved ones behind when they were re-posted. "They just looked so forgotten. Everybody else had beautiful flowers and all these lovely mementos and then there were these babies that had nothing. It was just dirt," Annie, who lives in Cyprus, said, according to Daily Mail.
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This weekend marks the 500th bear laid there – with the final 20 to be placed atop the remaining children’s graves. The battalion of teddies acts as a reminder of how many children perished during this time, reigniting speculation about what happened. In order to put an end to "60 years of torment," some of the infants' relatives are now requesting a public investigation into the murders. Although a statistical study done in 2010 came to the conclusion that the newborn mortality rate, which appeared to be high, was in accordance with predictions at the time, a lot of questions still linger.
How did more than 450 children die between 1960-70?
While some claim that the newborns' deaths were caused by insufficient radioactive exposure, many point the finger at adverse reactions to the vaccination combinations that were administered to military people at the time. Over the years, outbreaks of dysentery, cholera, meningitis, and typhoid on the island have also been blamed for the deaths. Others contend that the deaths were caused by subpar care at the British Military Hospital (BMH) Dhekelia, where the majority of the infants died.
Retired RAF wing commander Bob Braban, 84, from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, and his wife Margaret are among those calling for a public investigation into infants’ deaths. They believe their son Miles, who died in November 1963, would have survived if he would have received better medical care. "They gave me pethidine far too close to delivery, which can affect the baby's breathing," Margaret, 82, said. She added, "He stayed in an incubator for the next two days. On the morning that he died at about nine o'clock I watched the team go into the room where he was. And then sometime later, I remember the nurse coming to me and saying 'I'm sorry to say Mrs Braban, your baby has died. Do you want to see him?' And that was that."
What did Professor Stephen Evans' study state in 2010?
Families, according to the retired auxiliary nurse, were not looking for financial recompense, but rather an admission that anything had gone wrong with their treatment. According to burial records, the number of fatalities peaked in the early to mid-1960s and then sharply decreased afterward. The most recent was in 1976. Some 53 babies, almost half of whom were less than a week old, died in 1963 alone – a rate of more than one a week - with at least 11 infants and young children dying in November. An epidemiologist from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was hired by the Ministry of Defence in 2010 to examine data in search of extra fatalities.
According to Professor Stephen Evans' study, overall rates at all stages of infancy were largely in line with historical expectations, albeit they were typically somewhat higher than those observed in the UK and Cyprus. He said infant mortality in Britain was 10 times higher than it is now, mostly as a result of less advanced healthcare. Professor Evans continued by claiming that the peacekeeping role of UK forces meant few servicemen were dying, which when combined with no elderly residents on the bases, gave the military cemetery a misleading appearance.