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Monday, July 01, 2019

Serial Murders of Immigrant Women and Children in Cyprus

Take a look at the women whose lives were taken mercilessly by an evil man, neglectful police, and an apathetic public.  Those murders would have been prevented had the police and the public done their jobs.

Just like Charlotte P.D. brushed off the concerns of the Black murder victims of serial killer Henry Louis Wallace, the police in Cyprus brushed off concerns of immigrant Filipinas in connection with the missing and murdered women of Cyprus serial killer.


Cypriot police chief fired over the handling of the serial murders of women and children of Color.  Good for them.  I wished for the same kind of action back in the U.S. where police chiefs and investigators have the tendencies to mishandle serial murder cases involving poor and working class Black women, past and present.


Vigil and protest for the murdered victims as well as to protest violence against women and children in the island nation of Cyprus.


Nikos Metaxas was convicted in connection with a string of murders of young immigrant women and children of Color in the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. The discovery of the remains of seven women and children in the toxic lakes of copper mines and shooting range outraged the inhabitants of that island.  

Protesters took to the streets to demand answers in why the deaths of the women went unreported by the authorities and that the police and government had been slow in searching the missing women and children because they were immigrants and foreign workers.

Most of the murdered women were from the Philippines.  Two were from Romania.  One woman was from either Nepal or India.  


These women were attractive, hard working individuals who were improving their lives and their families by working overseas.  

Women and men from economically disadvantage nations had to take work in richer nations because of economic and social inequality in their home countries.  Wealthy countries take advantage of adverse economic conditions of poorer nations by promising women to work in domestic and agricultural jobs.  Many of the workers worked in poor conditions without rights. They're poorly paid and are subjected to abuse, deportation, and worse.

The case in Cyprus really exposed an exploitative system that allow thousands of migrant women to work as housemaids in conditions that critics have described as modern-day slavery.

This exploitative system isn't confined to Cyprus.  It's all over the whole world including America.

The women and children murdered are:

* Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38, Philippines
* Arian Palanas Lozano, 28, Philippines
* Maricar Valtez Aquiola, 31, Philippines
* Sienna Graze Seucalliuc, 6, Mary Rose' daughter, Philippines
* Livia Florentina Bunea, Romania
* Elena Natalia Bunea, 8, Livia's daughter, Romania
* Unknown woman, either from Nepal or India



Members of the Filipino community in Cyprus held a vigil in honor of the victims


Greek National Nikos Metaxas(inset)murdered 7 women and children over a two-year period.
A lake in Cyprus where the remains of some of his victims were found. 



The following article is from the BBC News Network

Nikos Metaxas, 35, plead guilty in court on Monday to 12 charges relating to the abduction and killing of seven women and girls in Cyprus over three years.
In tears, he apologized to the victims' families and said he did not know why he committed the "hateful crimes".
The case, Cyprus's first trial of a serial killer, has stunned the island.
"Cypriot society will be wondering how one of its members reached this point," he told the court in the capital Nicosia, adding: "I have also asked myself why; I have not yet managed to find an answer."
Metaxas said he was willing to assist authorities "in search of those answers".



A candlelight vigil held in honor of the seven murdered victims


The killings took place between September 2016 and August 2018. Of his victims, three of the women were from the Philippines, one from Nepal and one from Romania. Most were working as housekeepers.
The two children were aged six and eight.
The country's police chief was later sacked and the justice minister resigned over the failure to properly investigate following the missing persons reports.

Associated Press Archive.  On Monday June 24, A Cyprus criminal court on Monday sentenced an army captain to seven life terms in prison after he pleaded guilty to the premeditated murder and kidnapping of seven foreign women and girls.
In handing down the sentence, the three-judge panel said that Nicholas Metaxas appeared to have mounted a "campaign of murder" in choosing defenceless women, most of whom came to Cyprus looking for work.

The case first came to light in April, when the bodies of two women - Marry Rose Tiburcio, 38, and Arian Palanas Lozano, 28, both from the Philippines - were discovered.
One of the bodies was spotted by tourists down a mine shaft that had flooded following heavy rains.
The discoveries triggered an investigation and, after tracking Ms Tiburcio's online messages, police arrested Metaxas on suspicion of murder.
At first he denied killing a third Filipino woman, Maricar Valtez Arquiola, 31, who was reported missing in 2017, but then changed his testimony and confessed.
Following his arrest, Metaxas showed investigators to a well at an army firing range where the body of one of the victims was discovered.
Authorities then scoured two lakes in the south for two other bodies.
Metaxas reportedly gave police detailed information about how he disposed of the bodies.
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I'm glad justice has been served and that POS served seven consecutive life terms in prison.  While the verdict won't bring the victims back to life.  This tragedy would have been prevented had the police took the reports of missing women and girls seriously as well as taken the time to thoroughly investigate the crimes.  It's a pattern we see involving poor people of Color and Immigrants, time and time again.  This needs to stop.

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