'Homecoming' to a ghost town sparks Greek Cypriot anguish

There's a groundswell of anger among thousands of Greek Cypriot refugees who fear their property in the Turkish-occupied ghost town of Varosha could be forever lost

VAROSHA, Cyprus -- The freshly paved street with its new bicycle lane markings meanders through the heart of abandoned Varosha, in ethnically split Cyprus' breakaway north, to a crumbling cinema in front of Savvas Constantinides’ family home. Yet a rope line prevents the Greek Cypriot cardiologist from walking down a shrub-festooned side street to see the home he fled as a 6-year-old refugee in 1974, while Turkish troops approached the Famagusta suburb. Like any tourist or sightseer, Varosha’s Greek Cypriot former residents must look from behind ropes at empty houses and schools, gutted hotels and looted stores. They can’t enter their lost homes.