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Louroujina/Akıncılar is a village located in the Nicosia district of Cyprus, five kilometers southeast of Dali and directly north of Lymbia. Louroujina/Akincilar was one of the largest Turkish Cypriot villages in Cyprus before the division of the island. The origin of the name is obscure. Some say it comes from ‘la regina,’ latin for the queen. In 1958, Turkish Cypriots adopted Akıncılar as its alternative name. Akıncılar literally means “Ottoman raiders” in Turkish.

 

 

The village was mixed until the 1950s, but Turkish Cypriots (Muslims) always constituted the majority. As can be seen from the chart above, in the Ottoman census of 1831, the Muslim (Turkish Cypriot) share of the population was almost 81%. In 1891 this percentage increased to 88%. Throughout the British period the Turkish Cypriot population continued to increase, while the Greek Cypriot percentage declined. By 1960, there were only three Greek Cypriots left in the village.

Displacement:

The first conflict-related displacement occurred when Greek Cypriots fled the village in the 1950s as a result of intercommunal tensions created by the EOKA struggle. Although no one was displaced from the village during the intercommunal strife of the 1960s, the village became an important reception center for displaced Turkish Cypriots. Richard Patrick recorded almost 1,000 displaced Turkish Cypriots still living in the village in 1971; for the same year he also estimated the population of the village at 2,800. The majority of these displaced persons came from nearby villages such as Potamia/Dereli(089), Piroyi/Gaziler(093), Nisou/Dizdarköy(076), Dali(024) and Agios Sozomenos/Arpalık(008). In addition, in the first months of 1964, Petrophani/Esendağ(370) villagers also sought refuge in the village for a short time but later returned to their homes. After the division of the island in 1974, when most of village’s fertile land ended up in the buffer zone or south of the Green Line and the village itself became a semi-militarized zone, most of its inhabitants and the displaced families from the 1960s were relocated to empty Greek Cypriot villages in the north. While the Turkish Cypriots of Louroujina chose to move to the village of Lysi/Akdoğan(167), most of the 1960s displaced families settled in Argaki/Akçay(020) in the Morphou/Güzelyurt area. It is important to note that, despite the insistence of the Turkish Cypriot leadership, almost 300 Louroujina Turkish Cypriots chose to stay in the village, which is now surrounded by the buffer zone and military barricades. Today, the only access to the village is through a Turkish military camp in Piroyi/Gaziler(093) village.

Current Inhabitants:

Currently the village is occupied by those of its original Turkish Cypriot inhabitants who chose to stay there. The 2006 census put the village’s population at 462.  

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• Hatay, Mete, (2005). “Beyond Numbers: An Inquiery into the Political Integration of the Turkish ‘Settlers’ in Northern Cyprus,” PRIO/Cyprus Centre Report  4/2005, Nicosia/Oslo, PRIO.
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• Yorgancıoğlu,  Oğuz: Kıbrıs’ta Türkçe Yer Adları ve Veriliş Yöntemleri Üzerine Bir Araştırma Kıbrıs Araştırmaları Dergisi, Cilt : 2, Sayı : 3, Yıl : 96

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)