Sharjah24 - AFP: In a long-abandoned village in the UN buffer zone that divides Cyprus, an endangered curly-horned wild sheep offers hope not only for wildlife but that bitter ethnic divisions might slowly be healed.
The mouflon, a majestic breed endemic to the Mediterranean island, is one of many species flourishing in the no-man's-land created when inter-communal strife sliced Cyprus in two in the 1960s.
"Without human influence, the wildlife and plant life have flourished," said Salih Gucel, director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences at Near East University in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north.
"It is like stepping back in time to what our grandparents would have seen 100 years ago," Gucel said, after spotting an orchid growing amid the tumbled ruins of a farmhouse in the village of Varisha, some 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of the capital Nicosia.
Cyprus has been split since 1974 when Turkish forces occupied the northern part of the island in response to a Greek-sponsored military coup.
The buffer zone covers some three percent of the island, is 180 kilometres (112 miles) long and up to eight kilometres (five miles) wide.
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