Mandria (Paphos)

Yeşilova / Mandria Μανδριά / Mandria Yeşilova / Mandirga
Basic data
State :	Republic of Cyprus
District :	Paphos
Geographic coordinates :	34 ° 43 '  N , 32 ° 32'  E Coordinates: 34 ° 43 '  N , 32 ° 32'  E
Residents :	360 (2001)

View of Mandria

Mandria ( Greek Μανδριά , Turkish Yeşilova , also Mandirga ) is a village in the south of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus . It belongs to the Paphos District of the Republic of Cyprus .

geography

Yeşilova / Mandria is located 12 kilometers southeast of Paphos and five kilometers west of Kouklia , on the south coast of the island. The village is located on the motorway between Limassol and Paphos .

population

Yeşilova / Mandria was predominantly inhabited by Cypriot Turks before 1974 . In 1946 there were 329 Cypriot Turks and 75 Cypriot Greeks in the village. During the civil war-like conditions, the Greek residents fled to the surrounding, predominantly Greek-inhabited villages, so that in 1960 413 Cypriot Turks and one Cyprus Greek were counted. In 1973 there were 642 Cypriot Turks. These settled in the north of the island after 1974.

Today Yeşilova / Mandria is inhabited by the Greek Cypriots who had to move from the north of the island to the south. At the 2001 census, there were 360 ​​Greek Cypriots.

history

Mandria, which was located in a wine-growing region, had great development potential in the eyes of the British, who took over the island from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. Therefore, as early as 1882, the first telephone connection to a village in the hinterland of Mandria was reached by connecting it with Limassol. During the Second World War, the British military rated the villages of Arsos , Platres , Omodos and Mandria as particularly pro-German, in fact, they were even suspected of having “enemy cells” there.

After 1963/64 the village was one of the many Turkish-speaking enclaves in Cyprus. Residents from neighboring Turkish villages who did not want to or were not allowed to stay in their localities were accepted here. In 1971 Richard Patrick counted 200 Cypriot Turks who had fled from villages in the area and were taken into Yeşilova / Mandria. In October 1972 there was a confrontation between armed men from the community and from neighboring Greek communities who were able to prevent Austrian unity of the UN by forcing the armed men apart. The abbot of Kykko Monastery and EVKAF were able to negotiate a compromise on the underlying land dispute.

When Turkish troops marched into the north of the island on July 20, 1974, the Cypriot National Guard attacked the village because it was of great strategic importance. The fighting lasted a day and many were injured. After the fighting ended, all Turkish Cypriot men of fighting age were interned in a prisoner-of-war camp in Geroskipou , where they were held for 66 days, before being exchanged for prisoners of war from the north. The civilians left behind had to wait in the south until they were also relocated to the north on September 1, 1975 under an escort of UNFICYP . Today they live in Alsancak near Kyrenia , Lapta and Morfou / Güzelyurt . The total number of displaced residents is given as 450 to 500.

Web links

• Yeşilova / Mandria , table on the population development since 1831 and further information about Yeşilova / Mandria (English)

Remarks

1. ↑ Tabitha Morgan: Sweet and Bitter Island. A History of the British in Cyprus , IB Tauris, London 2010, p. 7.
2. ↑ Tabitha Morgan: Sweet and Bitter Island. A History of the British in Cyprus , IB Tauris, London 2010, p. 194.
3. ^ Francis Henn: A Business of Some Heat. The United Nations Force in Cyprus Before and During the 1974 Turkish Invasion , Barnsley 2004, p. 98.