Memory of Sweet Homeland

Saturday, October 14, 1922. The merchant steamer Twefik El Bari arrives at the port of Larnaca from Alaya, a coastal city in Asia Minor, with its sole cargo of 509 distressed Asia Minor refugees, mostly women, children and the elderly. The ship is on an emergency rescue mission for the Greek population of Alaya. After the massacres and burning of Smyrna, the Greek inhabitants of Alaya and other cities were ordered by the Neo-Turks to leave their ancestral homes, leaving behind their houses, shops, property, churches, their lives, their past, their history.