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Karpaseia or Karpasha is a small Maronite village in the west Kyrenia district, situated only one mile south of Myrtou/Çamlıbel. This village was inhabited mainly by Maronites, and is the smallest of the four Maronite villages of Cyprus. According to the Maronites, the village takes its name from the region of Syria from which the first inhabitants of Karpasha originated. However, Goodwin claims that the village was named after the Karpasia peninsula because it was the first settlement of Maronites arriving in Cyprus in the ninth century AD. Some Maronite sources also claim that the village’s name is originally Turkish, coming from “Garp Paşa,” or “Pasha of the West.” In its current form, the name also resembles a Turkish name, Karpaşa, meaning “Snow Pasha,” which is the likely reason that Turkish Cypriots did not change the village’s name after 1974. 

 

 

As can be seen from the chart above, in the Ottoman census of 1831, Christians constituted the majority of this settlement. At the turn of the century there were only one or two Muslim inhabitants in the village. The population had a steady increase during the British period from 64 in 1891 to 193 in 1960.

Displacement:

Most of the village’s inhabitants were immediately displaced in 1974, when in July and August they fled from the advancing Turkish army to the southern part of the island. Some however, continued to reside in the village. While in 1981 there were approximately 50 Maronites residing in the village, by 1996 there were only 19 Maronite inhabitants. Currently, like the rest of the displaced Greek Cypriots, most of the Maronites of Karpaseia are scattered throughout the island’s south, with large pockets in Nicosia. The displaced population of Karpaseia can be estimated to be around 250.

Current Inhabitants:

Today only eleven Maronites reside in Karpaseia, since the rest of its former inhabitants fled to the island’s south. The people from Karpaseia visit their village regularly to provide support to their mostly elderly co-villagers still residing there. After the easing of movement restrictions in 2003, some Karpashites began to renovate their houses and use them as weekend homes, since most now live in Nicosia. Apart from the remaining Maronites, the village also hosts some Turkish military personnel families. The 2006 census puts the village’s population at 89 (only 11 Maronites).  

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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)