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It takes a lot for Cypriots to be woken from their false sense of security as only events of seismic proportions usually rattle society from its navel-gazing.
Events earlier this week was one of those rare moments Cypriot society was shocked to its core when two boys were abducted outside their primary school by a man pretending to be a new teacher.
Kids swiped from the schoolyard by a total stranger just doesn’t happen on our streets and in our neighbourhoods.
Cyprus prides itself as a family-safe zone, nobody touches our kids no matter how sick and twisted they may be. Family is blood and kidnapping innocent children will not be tolerated or allowed in a country that prides itself on cherishing the extended family.
When the events unfolded on Tuesday and the realisation dawned on everybody that this was not some custody dispute but an unheard-of double kidnapping of random children – the collective disbelief was palpable.
And the unified response was also something we rarely see, a collective determination by the authorities and the public that this would not pass, there would be no contemplation of ugly outcome but a swift, surgical conclusion to the nightmare.
Nobody gets very far in Cyprus without somebody knowing your business, and police were led to the 35-year-old suspect after a neighbour noticed the man acting suspiciously and changing the number plates on his car that fitted the description of the vehicle seen outside the Larnaca school.
Following an unprecedented police operation, the kids were found safe and physically unharmed at an apartment in Larnaca, within walking distance from the school, more than seven hours after the abduction.
It seems the 10-year-old boys were persuaded to walk with the man and were not bundled into a car and driven off into the distance.
The boys were rescued safe and sound but there is evidence to suggest that their kidnapper had sedated them – to keep them calm – during the relatively short time they were held captive.
Apparently, the suspect has given a voluntary statement saying the motive behind the brazen move was financial as he sought to demand a ransom for the kids. Police aren’t totally convinced that this was the sole motive or whether he was acting as a lone wolf so to speak.
There is also a suggestion that the same suspected was sighted outside other schools acting suspiciously without the matter being taken further.
What this incident has done, has made us fully aware that we cannot take our children’s safety for granted even if Cyprus is a stranger to the kind of brutal crimes against innocence that occurs elsewhere.
This does not mean that a moral panic should ensue about the hidden bogeyman waiting to pounce on our young.
But we should be concerned about how easy it was for this man to approach a group of children inside the school premises posing as a new teacher. Another worrying aspect is why it took the school 45 minutes to notice that the two boys were absent without leave.
Although knee-jerk reactions do nobody any favours, there should be a reasoned discussion about security at our schools and the lack of surveillance cameras in general. I know there will be that whole Big Brother argument wheeled out but there is an advantage in using such technology to fight crime and keep our schools safer.
In a roundabout way, it also shows the folly and ineptitude of recently granting a sex offender a presidential pardon without any means of being able to keep proper tabs on the person. This was done without the victim being informed or the community where that person would be residing or working. The official explanation for allowing the offender out early is that the victim was no longer a minor.
When news of the release did cause a stir it made things uncomfortable for the government but as a society, we should not tolerate such behaviour under any circumstances. It should also worry us that there is no proper rehabilitation programme for sex offenders or an effective way of monitoring them at present.
Such deficiencies should be considered when reviewing how safe our children are or will be in the future. And this may mean tighter background checks for staff at schools, CCTV cameras and security at the entrance to schools.
Granted, this may not be the kind of Cyprus we want to live in, but we must contemplate all viable options to improve child safety or this will become an island we no longer recognise.
Nevertheless, there is one golden rule passed down from parents to children that has stood the test of time: “Don’t talk to strangers.”
