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Alektora is a village situated in the Limassol district, five kilometers north of Pissouri. The village’s name appears to come from the Greek “alektor,” meaning “cock.” In 1958 Turkish Cypriots adopted the alternative name Gökağaç, literally meaning “sky tree.”

 

 

As can be seen in the above chart, Alektora/Gökağaç was a Turkish Cypriot village from the Ottoman period. Although some Greek Cypriot families had settled there sometime after 1911, they all left the village in the 1950s. The population of the village increased throughout the British period, rising from 216 persons in 1891 to 349 in 1960.

Displacement:

Approximately 20 Greek Cypriots left the village before the 1960 census. Whether or not this movement was related to the conflict needs to be scrutinized. No one else was displaced from this village during the 1950s emergency years, nor during the intercommunal fighting of 1963-64. However, the village served as a reception center for displaced Turkish Cypriots who fled the nearby villages of Gerovasa/Yerovası(264) and Malia/Bağlarbaşı(270) in 1964. Richard Patrick recorded 57 displaced Turkish Cypriots still living in the village in 1971. The first conflict-related displacement from Alektora/Gökağaç took place in 1974, when the village’s Turkish Cypriot population fled to the Akrotiri British Sovereign Base Area. They stayed there until January 1975, when they were transferred via Turkey to the northern part of the island, mainly to be resettled in Pentagiea/Yeşilyurt(084). The total number of displaced Turkish Cypriots from Alektora/Gökağaç can be estimated to be 380-400 (349 in the 1960 census).

Current Inhabitants:

Currently the village is mainly inhabited by displaced Greek Cypriots from the north. The last Cypriot census of 2001 put the total population at 78.  

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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)