It was in the early hours on Monday morning, around 01:30, that I was finishing up creating our new website when I heard an almighty explosion. Okay, maybe it wasn’t almighty, but it was big. I looked out the front, back and sides of the House and could see nothing, it was pitch black after all. So, I assumed some poor soul’s gas tank had exploded, not an unknown occurrence in Cyprus, and went to bed.
I never thought anymore of it until yesterday afternoon when my wife, scrolling through Facebook, exclaimed an ohhh, out loud. It was a piece from the Cyprus Mail that said a bomb (told you!) had gone off in our village in the early hours of Monday morning. The bomb, a home made device, had been placed outside someone’s house and the resulting explosion had damaged both the outside and the inside of the house.
The house is the property of a local game warden and a 46 year old man from Larnaca has been arrested by the police on suspicion of causing an explosion.
To many this may seem shocking, and yet despite one reason for our coming to live in Cyprus because it’s less violent than the UK, this sort of thing happens quite often.
“Game warden’s home damaged in blast”
“Limassol shops bombed, fired upon”
“Cypriot embassy severely damaged in Athens bomb blast”
“Blast destroys betting shop, building evacuated”
These are some of the headlines I’ve seen from a Google search two minutes ago. I’m sure I could find more and indeed we experienced a blast, a bomb was assumed, a few weeks back. It was so powerful it shook the house and many from our street came out to see what it was. We never found out.
Cyprus is a quiet and friendly place, but there are occasions when bombings and shootings are the chosen path for resolving arguments. After all, it’s not only some of the locals who resort to this kind of violent action, let’s not forget there is an element of criminality on the island as the US state department suggested concerning money laundering on the island.
Life in Cyprus? It’s a blast!
Tom Kane © 2017
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