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Hamid Mandres was originally a Turkish Cypriot village that is today a suburb of the Turkish Cypriot municipality of Nicosia. It is situated north of the capital, on the new road to Famagusta. Hamid Mandres means “sheepfold of Hamid”both in Greek and Turkish. Until the British arrived, it was only a sheepfold. It grew to be a village in the first decades of the British period. In 1975, Turkish Cypriots slightly changed the name to Hamitköy, meaning “Hamit’s village.” This insignificant village became important when Turkish Cypriots from Omorfita/Küçük Kaymaklı sought refugee there in December 1963 and established one of the island’s largest refugee camps, a tent city where later refugee housing was built.

 

 

Since the Ottoman period until the present, Hamitköy has been predominantly inhabited by Turkish Cypriots. The population of the village increased steadily, growing from 113 in 1891 to 418 in 1960.

Displacement:

No one was displaced from this village during the intercommunal strife of the 1960s. However, during this period, the village served as an important reception center for many displaced Turkish Cypriots who had fled from nearby villages and neighborhoods. According to Richard Patrick, during the December 1963 fighting in Nicosia, Turkish Cypriots fled from some neighborhoods of the old city as well as from the suburbs of Strovolos(097), Aglangia(011), Omorfita(077) and Trakhonas(100). These displaced persons constituted almost 30% of the Turkish Cypriot population of greater Nicosia. Most of these displaced persons moved to the Turkish Cypriot quarters of the walled city or northwards to Ortakeuy(080), Geunyeli(038) or Hamid Mandres. Many displaced families stayed in Hamid Mandres/Hamitköy until 1968 or moved to the Turkish Cypriot quarters in the walled city of old Nicosia. There was an attempt to build refugee housing from mud bricks in 1965 but the project largely failed due to excessive rainfall in that year. Although the majority of displaced persons had moved into Nicosia’s walled city by 1971, Richard Patrick recorded 378 still residing at that time in the Hamid Mandres/Hamitköy refugee camp. After the 1974 war, most of the displaced families were resettled in the empty Greek Cypriot neighborhoods of Nicosia such as Trakhonas(100) and Nea Polis/Yeni Şehir.

Current Inhabitants:

Hamid Mandres/Hamitköy is currently inhabited by its original villagers. In addition, there are some Turkish Cypriots who were displaced in 1964 or 1974, most coming from Omorfita/Küçük Kaymaklı(077) and the Paphos district in the south. Over the last twenty years, many other middle class and upper middle class Turkish Cypriots from north Nicosia have also settled in the village/neighborhood, bought property and built new houses. This development overlapped with the exodus of Turkish Cypriots from the walled city to the suburbs for “better” and “modern” accommodations. The last Turkish Cypriot census of 2006 put the village/neighborhood’s population at 2,898. The village officially became a neighborhood and part of the Turkish Cypriot Nicosia municipality in 2008.  

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Websites:

• http://www.cyprus-village.com/ (for the villages)
• http://news.karpasha.com/
• http://human-rights-archaeology.blogspot.com/
• http://kypros.org/Occupied_Cyprus/ (for the villages in the north)