In July 1974, a Greek military junta-backed coup sought to unite Cyprus with Greece; Turkey responded by invading the island, citing its role as a treaty guarantor power, and by August had captured roughly 36% of Cyprus in the north. Around 150,000–200,000 Greek Cypriots fled or were displaced to the south, while about 45,000–65,000 Turkish Cypriots relocated to the north, a movement formalized in a 1975 UN-mediated population exchange agreement. Cyprus has remained divided since, with a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating the Republic of Cyprus (an EU member since 2004) from the north, where Turkey unilaterally recognized the 'Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus' in 1983. Reunification talks have repeatedly failed, most recently in 2017, and the property and displacement disputes remain largely unresolved five decades later.
Turkey invaded Cyprus following a Greek-junta-backed coup against President Makarios, leading to the island's de facto partition; Greek Cypriots fled or were expelled from the north, and Turkish Cypriots relocated to the north, largely under a 1975 population exchange agreement.
The 1973 census counted 631,778 people, about 506,000 Greek Cypriots and 118,000 Turkish Cypriots, with small Maronite, Armenian and Latin communities.
No agreed toll exists and the two sides count differently. Greek Cypriot sources give figures in the low thousands of Greek and Greek Cypriot dead (some references cite 6,000 'killed or wounded' as a single conflated category); Turkey acknowledges roughly 500-570 of its own servicemen killed; Turkish Cypriot sources record several hundred civilians killed in EOKA-B massacres, including 126 at Maratha, Santalaris and Aloda and 85 at Tochni on 14 August 1974. The bicommunal Committee on Missing Persons, supported by ICMP, lists 2,002 people missing from the 1963-64 unrest and 1974 combined (1,510 Greek Cypriots and 492 Turkish Cypriots), of whom 1,029 had been identified by early 2023; the low end of this range counts confirmed dead only, the high end includes the still-missing and the wounded conflated into some published totals.
Enforced disappearance and the denial of displaced persons' homes and property were established by the European Court of Human Rights in Cyprus v. Turkey (2001) and the missing are catalogued by the UN-backed Committee on Missing Persons and ICMP; the massacres of Turkish Cypriot villagers at Maratha, Santalaris, Aloda and Tochni by EOKA-B are separately documented, the UN having described the first as a crime against humanity.
N. Cyprus, Cyprus