The mother of murdered Filipina Maricar Valdez Arquiola, slain by Cyprus’ first serial killer, is campaigning for the government to give proper financial compensation for the woman’s young son.
Maricar was one of the five women and two children whose bodies were found in 2019 after being brutally murdered by Cypriot army captain Nikos Metaxas, then 35.
Three were from the Philippines, one from Nepal and Romania.
Like three of the victims, Maricar was a domestic helper who came to Cyprus to support her family at home.
According to Philenews, Maricar’s mother recently sent a letter to a Cypriot MP in a desperate cry for help in her quest for proper justice for her grandson growing up without his mother.
“For the last five years, my grandson, who was seven years old (when his mother was killed), has lived in the Philippines in economic hardship due to the loss of his mother, who was supporting him financially when she was alive,” she wrote.
Maricar’s mother argues that her son is at least entitled to proper education and decent living conditions while growing up.
“If he does not get some money now, when he is 20 years old, it won’t be of any use to him if he’s uneducated.”
Relatives of the other victims of the serial killer have also filed lawsuits against the Republic and the convicted murderer.
Reportedly families of the victims were told by the legal service officials they were waiting to collect all lawsuits and take a decision for all cases.
The victims’ families were initially handed €17,000 in compensation.
Maricar’s family has filed a lawsuit against the attorney general’s office seeking damages to the tune of €500,000, accusing the state of failing to act after the 30-year-old woman was reported missing.
She was murdered in 2017, and her body was discovered inside a suitcase thrown in a lake in rural Nicosia two years later.
The killing spree was revealed in 2019 when tourists found the first body belonging to 38-year-old Marry Rose Tiburcio from the Philippines in a mineshaft.
She had been reported missing along with her daughter, 6-year-old Sierra-Graze, whose body was tossed into a nearby lake.
The other murdered women were Αrian Palanas Lozano, 28, also from the Philippines, 30-year-old Asmita Khadka Bista from Nepal, and Romanian mother Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, and her 8-year-old daughter Elena Natalia Bunea.
The Greek Cypriot army officer confessed to murdering five foreign women and two of their daughters in a string of killings that shocked the Mediterranean holiday island.
Failure by the authorities to follow up on the reports of missing women sparked ire. It led to the dismissal of the police chief and the resignation of then justice minister Ionas Nicolaou.
