Bloody Christmas (Turkish: Kanlı Noel) refers to intercommunal violence between Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot populations during the Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, on the night of 20–21 December 1963 and the subsequent period of island-wide violence amounting to civil war. This initial episode of violence lasted until 31 December and was somewhat subdued with the start of peace talks at the London Conference, but outbursts of violence continued thereafter. The violence precipitated the end of Turkish Cypriot representation in the Republic of Cyprus.
The death toll for the entire conflict between December and August amounts to 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots, of whom 136 Turkish Cypriots and 30 Greek Cypriots were killed in the initial period between 21 December and 1 January.
Approximately 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 104 villages, amounting to a quarter of the Turkish Cypriot population, fled their villages and were displaced into enclaves after TMT forced them to. Thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses left behind were ransacked or completely destroyed. Around 1,200 Armenian Cypriots and 500 Greek Cypriots were also displaced.
The Republic of Cyprus was established as a bi-communal unitary state in 1960. Neither of the two communities were happy with this situation as Greek Cypriots thought it was their right to unite Cyprus with Greece (enosis) while Turkish Cypriots were striving for partition (taksim).
The first major crisis came in December 1961 when the Turks refused to vote for the budget as a reprisal for the Greek failure to fulfil certain obligations affecting Turkish interests in other spheres.
After two relatively peaceful years, in November 1963 tensions skyrocketed when President and Archbishop Makarios III proposed 13 constitutional changes for his consideration which were met with fury by Turkish Cypriots. Some of the suggestions were technical, a few had advantages for the Turks, others affected the perceived Turkish security. Nothing at this stage impinged upon the wider interests of Turkey under the Treaty of Guarantee but the Turkish Government saw the attempt to change the basic articles as a dangerous precedent and rejected the proposals. The Archbishop had made his move at a time when intercommunal tension was high. Both sides had been stockpiling arms since the Zürich agreement that led to Cyprus' independence and a clash was expected sooner or later.
The incident that sparked the events of Bloody Christmas occurred during the early hours of 21 December 1963. Greek Cypriot police operating within the old Venetian walls of Nicosia demanded to see the identification papers of some Turkish Cypriots who were returning home in a taxi from an evening out. These Turkish Cypriots were being driven by taxi driver Zeki Halil and were around Hermes Street en route to Taht-el Kale. When the police officers attempted to search the women in the car, Halil objected and a discussion ensued. Soon a crowd gathered and shots were fired.
Cemaliye Emirali, the ex-lover of Zeki Halil, who was similarly returning from a night out, saw the incident and got involved. Police called for reinforcements from Paphos Gate, and one of the reinforcements shot and killed Zeki Halil and Cemaliye Emirali. By dawn, two Turkish Cypriots had been killed and eight others, both Greek and Turkish Cypriots, had been wounded.
After the shooting, crowds of Turkish Cypriots gathered in the northern part of Nicosia, often led by the Turkish Resistance Organisation (TMT). On 22 December, the funerals of the two Turkish Cypriots killed were held without incident. However, shooting broke out on the evening of 22 December. Cars full of armed Greek Cypriots roamed through the streets of Nicosia and fired indiscriminately, and Turkish Cypriots fired at patrolling police cars. Turkish Cypriot snipers fired from minarets and the roof of the Saray Hotel on Sarayönü Square. Some shooting spread to the suburbs and to Larnaca. The Greek Cypriot administration cut off telephone and telegraph lines to Turkish Cypriot quarters of the city of Nicosia and the police took control of the Nicosia International Airport. Greek paramilitary groups led by Nikos Sampson and Vassos Lyssarides were activated.
On 23 December, a ceasefire was agreed upon by Makarios III and Turkish Cypriot leadership. However, fighting continued and intensified in Nicosia and Larnaca. Machine guns were fired from mosques in Turkish-inhabited areas and later on 23 December, Greek Cypriot irregulars headed by Sampson came to assist in the battle of Omorphita, they attacked the suburb and eventually took it over with the Turkish Cypriot residents of the quarter later being expelled from their homes.
A number of Turkish Cypriot mosques, shrines and other places of worship were desecrated. Greek Cypriot irregulars attacked Turkish Cypriots in the mixed villages of Mathiatis on 23 December and Ayios Vasilios on 24 December. The entire Turkish Cypriot population of Mathiatis, 208 people, fled to nearby Turkish Cypriot villages.
Based on later interviews, the reporter Harry Scott Gibbons described the murder of 21 Turkish Cypriot patients from the Nicosia General Hospital on Christmas Eve. This is taken as a fact in the Turkish Cypriot narrative, but is disputed in the Greek Cypriot narrative. An investigation of the incident by a Greek Cypriot source found that three Turkish Cypriots died, of which one died of a heart attack and the other two were shot by a "lone psychopath".
On 24 December 1963, 11 people were killed in the Kumsal district of Nicosia. Among them were four members of the family of Major Nihat İlhan, who had retired from the Turkish Army as a Medical Brigadier General and was serving with the 650-strong Turkish Cypriot Forces Regiment stationed in Cyprus under the 1960 agreements. His wife, Mürüvet İlhan, and their children, Murat, Kutsi, and Hakan, were found dead in the bathtub of İlhan's home. The house where the raid occurred was later opened to visitors as the Museum of Barbarism.
A joint call for calm was issued on 24 December by the governments of Turkey, Greece and the United Kingdom.
Further clashes took place in the pass linking Nicosia to Kyrenia through the Kyrenia Mountains. This pass had fallen under Turkish Cypriot control and came under intense attack on 26 December from the north, with the Greek Cypriot forces being commanded by a Greek officer from the mainland. Turkish Cypriot forces, mostly from the village of Agirda, managed to retain control of the pass, and one Turkish Cypriot was killed.
As Cyprus was falling into chaos, Greece, Turkey and Britain, with Makarios's approval, created a Joint Truce Force under the command of General Peter Young, whose goal was to maintain, or rather re-establish, law, order and peace in Cyprus. A conference held in London in January among the protagonists of the events, failed because of the maximalist positions of the leadership of Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
Greek Cypriot forces attacked the Turkish Cypriot village of Ayios Vasilios on 24 December. A mass grave was exhumed there on 12 January 1964 in the presence of foreign reporters, British Army officers and officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross. The bodies of 21 Turkish Cypriots were found in this grave. A number of the victims in the mass grave showed signs of torture, and observers noted that they appeared to have been shot with their hands and feet tied.
Various rationales have been put forward as motivators for this Greek Cypriot attack. The Greek Cypriot leadership at the time was particularly wary of the villagers of Ayios Vasilios and nearby Skylloura blocking the road from Nicosia to Myrtou, which would have represented a strategic disadvantage should the Turkish army have invaded at the time from the northern coast. There may also have been an element of revenge in response to previous killings of Greek Cypriots in the local area.