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This settlement is located eight kilometers southeast of the town of Paphos and four kilometers west of Timi. Goodwin believes that the name of the farm or the settlement derives from L’Echelle (French for “port”). This name could have been the name of a family who owned the farm before the Ottomans took it over in 1571. The current village is known to have developed out of a farm. The family that owned the farm until 1945 were descendants of the infamous Cypriot Grand Vezir, Kıbrıslı Mehmet Emin Pasha. In 1945 the British administration confiscated the entire farm and gave it to the Acheleia Farm Cooperative, the ownership of which was distributed amongst 32 Turkish Cypriots and 112 Greek Cypriots. 

 

Acheleia was always a mixed settlement. As can be seen from the chart above, in the Ottoman census of 1831, Muslims (Turkish Cypriots) constituted almost 25% of the population. As in many other mixed villages, this ratio gradually decreased, dropping to 8% in 1960.

Displacement:

Due to rising tensions in the village, five Turkish Cypriot families, or nineteen persons, evacuated the settlement on 28 July 1958 and sought refuge in Paphos(329). Two of those families returned in 1960. However, all again fled the village for the Paphos(329) enclave in January 1964. They all stayed in Paphos(329) until 1975, when on 14 August they were escorted by UNFICYP to the northern part of the divide. They were mainly resettled in the Morphou district. The number of Turkish Cypriots originally from Acheleia who were displaced after 1974 was approximately 20.

Current Inhabitants:

This village is currently occupied only by its original Greek Cypriot inhabitants. According to the 2001 census, the population of the village was 113 persons.   

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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)