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Achna is a village in the Famagusta district, just north of the United Nations Buffer Zone. Before 1974, this village was solely inhabited by Greek Cypriots. It lies ten miles southwest of Famagusta town, and four miles northeast of Xylotymbou villlage. It was also known as Athna. Athna means “small pieces of straws” in Cypriot Greek. In 1975 Turkish Cypriots changed its name to Düzce, literally meaning “slightly flat.” Düzce is also the name of a town in Turkey.

 

 

As can be seen from the chart above, in the Ottoman census of 1831, Christians constituted the only inhabitants of the village. At the turn of the century there were only one or two Muslim (Turkish Cypriot) families in the village. Although the population of the village showed a slight increase during the first half of the 20^th century, a slight drop was recorded in 1960.

Displacement:

All of the village’s inhabitants were displaced in 1974, when they fled in August of that year from the advancing Turkish army and took refuge in the Dhekelia British Sovereign Base Area. Because they were within British sovereign territory, they were able to erect a provisional tent village only a hundred or so meters from their old village, within the Achna forest (Dasaki tis Achnas). Later they began to build a new village quite near the village from which they had fled, this one within the Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area. The number of Greek Cypriots who were displaced in 1974 was approximately 1,980 (1,979 counted in1973).

Current Inhabitants:

The former village is currently used as a Turkish Cypriot 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)