Experiences of interviewing secondary victims of frozen conflicts: Cyprus case

Year 2019, Volume: 5 Issue: 10, 250 - 265, 30.04.2019

Hasibe Vehbi Şahoğlu

Abstract

This article shares the experiences of interviewing the relatives of the missing persons whom are the secondary 

victims in the context of the decades long frozen conflict of Cyprus. Issues of identity of the interviewees and the 

researcher and ethics in interviewing the people living in divided societies will be examined. The Turkish and Greek 

Cypriots, continue to live with the agony of missing persons. They are anxious to find out the fate of their loved ones, 

waiting for Committee of Missing Persons to finalize all the cases of the missing persons. The irresolvable situation tends 

to block families’ cognition, coping and stress management, and freeze the grief processes. Process of interviewing 

secondary victims still grieving is accompanied with the context specific challenges. In this research beside the 

challenges of interviewing secondary victims of divided Cyprus, the feelings and thoughts of the interviewees, findings 

and results of the interviews are shared. 

Keywords

Interviews, missing persons, identity, Cyprus

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