Civilian Casualties and Displacements During The Cyprus Conflict - 1974: Coup D'Etat and The Turkish Invasion

1974: Coup D'Etat and The Turkish Invasion

With the coup d'état of April 21, 1967, Greece entered a period under the rule of the Colonels' Junta.

On 15 July 1974, the Republic of Cyprus government was overthrown by the Greek Cypriot national guard acting under orders from the Greek junta. The Greek junta installed an EOKA veteran and a member of the Cyprus Parliament, Nikos Sampson as the new president. The attempt to murder president Makarios failed, however, and he fled Cyprus with the help of the British army.

On 20 July 1974, in response to the coup, Turkish troops landed near Kyrenia, forcing a narrow corridor to Nicosia within 2 days, until a ceasefire was negotiated on 22 July. On the second day of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus the Colonels' Junta collapsed. Karamanlis returned from Paris and formed his civilian Government. In Cyprus, Nikos Sampson resigned and Glafkos Clerides took over the presidency as acting president, according to the 1960 Constitution.

In August of the same year, almost a month after the coup had dissolved the three guarantor powers, together with representatives of the two communities, met in Geneva. The Turkish Cypriots under Rauf Denktaş demanded a federal state with 34% of the territory ceded to Turkish Cypriots. Glafkos Klerides - the Greek Cypriot representative - asked for 36 to 48 hours in order to consult with his superiors. While still in talks, a second Turkish invasion was launched on Cyprus. When a ceasefire was declared, more than 36% of the territory was occupied by Turkish forces. The ceasefire line of 1974 today still separates the two communities and is generally referred to as the Green Line (or the 'Atilla Line'), and also runs through Nicosia, making it the only divided capital in the world.

The Turkish Army and the Greek side conducted a policy of ethnic cleansing consisting of wholesale attacks and massacres of both ethnic populations of the territories that came under their respective control in an attempt to terrorise the other side. The wholesale massacres carried by the Turkish army and Turkish Cypriot paramilitary groups against the Greeks of Cyprus spawned a limited number of similar attacks against Turkish civilians in the south by small groups of Greek Cypriot paramilitaries. In the small village of Tochni, all men between the ages of 13 and 74 were found shot (Tochni massacre). Likewise other mass graves were exhumed in the villages of Aloa, Sandalaris and Maratha containing women and children (Maratha, Santalaris and Aloda massacre).