When Sua Saracoglu, a businessman from Turkish northern Cyprus, heard that his 12-year-old son Kemal was dying of leukemia, he did what most parents would do. Informed that the only hope for his son was a bone marrow transplant — and that the likelihood of finding a genetically similar donor for such a transplant was greater in Cyprus than anywhere else — he set out to beat the odds. His odds, however, were worse than most. Northern Cyprus (pop. 200,000) has been divided from the southern, or Greek, side of the island (pop. 600,000) by an impenetrable, militarized green line since a civil war in 1974. Saracoglu could not cross the line. But there was a glimmer of hope. He heard of another boy, a Greek Cypriot named Andreas Vassiliou, 6, whose family was attempting to extend its own search campaign to the Turkish side. A joint effort was soon arranged, and the response was enormous. Thousands of donors from both sides overcame their prejudices and traveled to an old hotel right on the green line to give blood. The two boys became a symbol of a new era in which past differences might be set aside for a common good. Andreas crossed to northern Cyprus to pray for Kemal, and Kemal wrote Andreas that he hoped one day to travel with him in the Troodos Mountains in southern Cyprus.
Kemal was in London with his father receiving interim care when the family learned that a match had been found not in Cyprus, but on the Turkish mainland. But their elation gave way to alarm when the marrow did not arrive because of bureaucratic complications. When it finally did get to London, four weeks later, Kemal's leukemia, which had been in remission, had returned with force, rendering treatment pointless. "I didn't know what to say to him," his father told me, picking at his food at a sidewalk restaurant in old Nicosia. "Kemal was a very intelligent boy. He looked at my face and said, 'What happened?' It was a terrible day." Kemal died in August.
His father blames bureaucratic foul-ups and the isolation of northern Cyprus for the critical delay in sending the marrow to London. But the story does not end there. As a result of the campaign, Andreas Vassiliou is still alive, having received an experimental transplant in Texas. Moreover, a local foundation registered 57,500 potential bone marrow donors through the campaign. And one of them, a 30-year-old man from northern Cyprus, turned out to be a match for an 8-year-old Greek Cypriot girl called Andrea Gregoriou, diagnosed with leukemia. The transplant, carried out in October, was the first such gift to cross the green line. "Kemal lived a short life," said his father, hopefully, "but he pointed the way to something good."
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Wandering Borders
Squalor on the Balkan Express through lands where old atrocities linger in the memory but the borders are blurring
Photo Gallery
Check out the photos from this leg of TIME's Fast Forward Europe voyage
Crossing the Line
Joint efforts to find bone marrow donors for children with leukemia bring the two halves of Cyprus closer
Paper Curtain
East European countries moving toward E.U. membership are cut off from their neighbors
Points to Ponder
Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek on globalization and life's big questions
Good Riddance
Slobodan Milosevic's home town was a private playground for his delinquent son — until recently
Looking Forward, Looking Back
The artwork and lives of Christo and Jeanne-Claude are as historical as they are avant-garde
People To Watch: Radu Georgescu | Slavi Trifonov
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