The mosque in the Limassol district village of Malia suffered serious damage in the wildfire which has been raging in the region since Wednesday.

Bicommunal technical committee on cultural heritage co-chairman Ali Tuncay on Friday said the committee is aware of the situation, and that it “took action immediately after the fire” and “decided to start inspection and protection work inside the mosque”.

“In these difficult days, we wish the best to everyone who has been negatively affected by the fire, and I offer my personal condolences to the relatives of those who lost their lives,” he said.

The current mosque in Malia was built by the foundations administration (Evkaf) between 1905 and 1908, being opened officially on February 29 that year.

It was built after the village’s initial mosque, built by Turkish Cypriot villager El Hac Suleyman in the 19th century, was deemed too small. There are seven graves of Turkish Cypriots in its yard.

Malia was the village in which the fire had started on Wednesday, and was primarily a Turkish Cypriot village historically, being home to 624 Turkish Cypriots and 88 Greek Cypriots in 1960, and 427 Turkish Cypriots and 70 Greek Cypriots in 1973.

In 1974, the village’s Turkish Cypriot population fled the village, first travelling to the British Akrotiri base, where they stayed until February 1975, before being resettled in the village of Prastio, west of Morphou.