My character deleted?

Hi to all.
I log back to game after many years >< i started play in 2005 (starting of C2) I left in my account 2 players 65~lvl, and they are gone.
Does the deleted? And why?
As i read they deleted only 20 lvl below inactive for 1 year, after servers Merging.

Im waiting your responces.

there was a big cleaning and the characters what were older than 2 years and werent logged into game have been deleted

i understand its a bad thing missing old ad beloved chars, but tbh, lvl 65 can be done those days in a couple of hours. So imho it wouldnt be a reason to quit from this game if you rly wanna play here again.

Starting over would be to your benefit anyways. Free gear all the way to R grade.