Heroes

In the “APIS” region that is found near the administrative limits of Tala and Kissonerga and on the 7th of March 1957, Miltiades Stylianou from Tala and Christos Kkelis from Kissonerga heroically died in combat during the struggle of E.O.K.A. for liberation (1955 – 1959).

A modest monument was built in memory of these two heroes of the Cypriots’ struggle for freedom.

Miltiades Stylianou (curriculum vitae)
Miltiades Stylianou was born in Tala on the 17/6/1937 in a farming family. He was the first out of the family’s seven children. He graduated from the village’s elementary school and then studied in the Liasideio Middle School of his district.
He was one of the first to become a member of the Liberating Organisation E.O.K.A. and pretty soon he was Christos Kkelis’s right hand.
In 1956 he left high school so as to better serve the organisation. He was the loyal companion and the regional contact of Christos Kkelis. He was always next to Kkeli in ambushes, relocations, in supplying the guerrillas, and he was the spotter of his region.
On the 7th of March, 1957, while he was in the APPI region between Tala and Kissonerga along with Christos Kkelis, the British occupation troops -after receiving information from traitors -trapped them in their own hideout. At the call of the English soldiers to surrender Miltiades replied with the “Molon Lave” (famous phrase of ancient Greek hero Leonidas against the Persians when they asked him to surrender his weapons, meaning “come and get them”). In the battle that ensued, Miltiades Stylianou and Christos Kkelis fell and thus joined the honourable list of heroes and martyrs of Cyprus’s freedom.

Christos Miltiadous Kkelis (curriculum vitae)
Christos Kkelis was born in Kissonerga in 1934. He graduated from the elementary school of his village.
He was among the first to join the liberating organisation of E.O.K.A. Early on he gained the trust of the organisation’s leader and he placed him as the sector’s head. He participated in many ambushes and operations against the English.
An audacious and heroic operation of his was the placement of time-bombs in the military restaurant of the -then -English camp during an officers’ reception.
A wanted man and trying to avoid being arrested by the English who learned about his activity, he became a guerrilla fighter in the mountains.
After being betrayed, he was trapped along with his comrade, Miltiades Stylianou, in their APPI region hideout. After a harsh battle he was killed and so he also joined the heroes’ pantheon of Cyprus’s freedom.