2023-09-17 05:22:30
Cypriot Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said he will try to persuade the European Union and the United Nations to end Syria’s classification as an “unsafe country” to return refugees to.
Agence France-Presse quoted Ioannou as saying that Cyprus and European Union member states believe that “it is useful to re-evaluate the situation in Syria,” criticizing that the Union has left Syria’s situation unchanged for 11 years, saying: “There is a need to review this, because some The areas are considered safe.”
He stressed that there are “already two areas recognized by the European Union Asylum Agency as safe,” but stressed the need to recognize this at the European Union level, and thus allow Cyprus to deport or return people to Syria, because at the present time no member state can do that, according to Saying it.
The Cypriot move comes following a wave of racist attacks on foreigners in recent weeks on the island, which witnessed the influx of large numbers of asylum seekers, most of them Syrians, by sea from Syria and Lebanon, amid increasing anti-immigrant sentiment, according to the agency.
For his part, Cypriot Foreign Minister Margaritis Schinas said in a letter to the Vice President of the European Commission, “There is an urgent need to help Lebanon, where two and a half million Syrians have taken refuge.”
In turn, Ioannou confirmed that Cyprus has information from the Lebanese authorities regarding an increase in the number of Syrians moving to Lebanon, considering that “Lebanon is a barrier, and if it collapses, the whole of Europe will face a problem.”
He revealed that his country’s government was able to reduce the number of irregular migrants to 50 percent, “thanks to external factors and other specific measures,” and returns increased by 50 percent as well, voluntarily and through deportations.
He said that currently deportations are being accelerated and are now taking 3 months instead of 9, adding that the Cypriot government aims to make the country an unattractive destination by reducing financial allocations for asylum seekers.
According to the Cypriot government, the number of asylum seekers constitutes 6 percent of the total population of 915 thousand people, which is the highest percentage compared to the population of the European bloc countries. It also considers the island to be on the “front line” on the migration route across the Mediterranean.
The number of migrants arriving by boat increased by 60 percent in the first 7 months of 2023, according to Interior Ministry figures.
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