Paphos honoured journalist Sevgiul Uludag in an event on Thursday, for her contribution efforts to establish the fate of people who went missing in Cyprus.

Uludag’s investigative reporting, which aided in locating graves of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, was celebrated at the Paphos literary and arts centre for Cyprus Missing Persons Day.

Uludag, who died in June at the age of 67, was remembered for promoting truth, humanity and justice across dividing lines.

The programme included a screening of a film by Panicos Chrysanthou about the journalist and an address by centre president Stelios Sofokleous.

In a career which spanned over four and a half decades, Uludag devoted herself to the cause of Cyprus’ missing, the more than 2,000 people left unaccounted for after intercommunal violence in the 1960s and the Turkish invasion in 1974.

She became the first Cypriot to be awarded the international courage in journalism award in 2008, while also winning the European citizen’s prize in 2014 and being nominated for the Nobel peace prize in 2019.

In this tense, riveting first-person excerpt from his new book This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian Story, Evan Gershkovich recounts the harrowing months he spent as a prisoner in Russia, leading up to his eventual release in a complex, multi-country prisoner exchange. Even in the darkness, Gershkovich offers rays of light: care packages from friends, letters by the hundred, and a cautiously blossoming love with a friend in Berlin. We may know the ending, but the details of these days reveal what it takes to get there.

A few hours after my arrival, I heard a cart rolling down the hallway. A guard opened a kormushka — a feeder window in the door about the size of a human head. A man in a chef’s uniform filled my bowl with porridge, placed a piece of rancid-smelling boiled fish on my plate and gave me some weak tea. The reality of my new surroundings slammed into me.

Thoughts ricocheted inside my head. Earlier in the day I’d had a comforting one: they’ve taken me for a swap, I told myself. That’s all this is.

Now, curled up on the bed in my 12ft by 8ft cell, knees pulled to my chest, I thought, what if the FSB really does think I’m a spy and wants to make an example out of me? Maybe they don’t want to swap me at all. Maybe I really will spend 20 years here.