Stone Soup Museum of Children’s Art

International Collection

War in Cyprus

When we first began collecting international children’s art in 1978 we received a powerful set of prints by Greek-Cypriot children living in Cyprus. The prints tell the story of the devastating loss and destruction experienced firsthand by these children during the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey, which began in 1974. Cyprus, like a few other countries in the world, most notably Korea, remains divided. The Cypriot conflict, like most conflicts, was the result of complex events - and there are multiple ways to interpret those events. What is known about the Cypriot conflict, and all other conflicts, is that children are always the victims. For the children the rights and wrongs of the politics are irrelevant. This was the case in Cyprus, that is the case, today, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and the many other places where there is widespread conflict.

Click on each picture to see a larger version of it

Note: Over the years we have received many complaints asserting that this image is propaganda and that Turkish soldiers did not commit atrocities during this conflict, and if they did, that atrocities were committed on both sides. We cannot know whether or not this image is based on fact, on something the child witnessed, on a story she was told by someone who witnessed it, or whether the image is outright propaganda. What we do know is that atrocities have been committed on all sides of every war that we know about — from Vietnam to Congo to Sudan to Afghanistan to Iraq to Lebanon and so forth. So, we ask that you view this image as a cry from all the children who have, for a fact, witnessed atrocities like the one depicted in this image, and atrocities that were even worse. There is no question that with virtually no exceptions in the history of warfare, where this is war there are atrocities.