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Tymvou or Tymbou is a village situated in the Nicosia district, seventeen kilometers southwest of the city of Nicosia, six kilometers southwest of Mora/Meriç village, and immediately south of the old Nicosia-Famagusta road. Tymbou means “tomb” in Greek. In 1975, it was renamed Kırklar by Turkish Cypriots after the nearby Tekke of Kırklar (forty martyrs). The tekke was built in the eighteenth century on top of a cave with forty tombs. Until the 1950s, the site was venerated by both Muslims and Christians. The Greek name of the tekke was Agioi Saranta, “saranta” also meaning forty. Immediately north of the village stands the first airport built by the British. It was called Tymbou Airport until 1974. Turkish Cypriots took over the airport in 1974 and turned it into a fully functioning airport with direct flights to Turkey’s different locations. They renamed the airport Ercan after a Turkish military pilot who died in 1974. 

 

The Ottoman census of 1831 shows a tiny Muslim (Turkish Cypriot) population, which disappeared from the Tymbou census records by 1891. For much of the British period, Greek Cypriots were the sole inhabitants of the village. Although the British census reports registered some Turkish Cypriots living in the village in 1931 and 1946, their stay in the village did not last long. It is also possible that the censuses included the tekke’s residents as part of Tymbou in 1931 and 1946. In 1960, the village was exclusively inhabited by Greek Cypriots.

Displacement:

The reason for the disappearance of the Turkish Cypriots from the census records could be attributed to the destruction of the Kırklar Tekke in 1958, after the murder of the tekke’s sheikh by Greek Cypriot radicals and the subsequent flight of all its keepers.

In August 1974, all the Greek Cypriots of the village fled from the advancing Turkish army. Currently, like most of the displaced Greek Cypriots, the Greek Cypriots of Tymbou are scattered throughout the island’s south, with large pockets in towns. The number of the Tymbou Greek Cypriots who were displaced in 1974 was around 1,200 (1,133 in the 1960 census).

Current Inhabitants:

Today the village is a Turkish military camp.  

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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)