The government has two priorities for 2022 regarding migration, the supervision of the Green Line, where the largest flow of irregular migrants comes from, and the acceleration of the procedures for examining applications for political asylum, Interior Minister Nikos Nouris said, adding that there are four flow routes.
He said about 4,000 to 5,000 are political asylum seekers through virtual marriages and virtual students and flows from the sea and the Green Line. Nouris said that 85 per cent of migrants arriving in Cyprus are through the Green Line.
In the debate in the Human Rights Committee of the Parliament on the occasion of the recent visit to the Pournara reception centre, reference was made not only to this centre, but also to the shelters where migrants live in Chloraka, the situation with unaccompanied children, the protection and separation of families from singles, the integration programmes and the procedures for registering an asylum application, and even the delay in granting driving licences to those who work in food delivery services.
The Minister referred to the history of the centre in Pournara, noting that it currently hosts 2,000 to 2,500 people and is where the examinations and the process needed to verify data and submit an asylum application take place. Some families have been transferred to the Kofinou centre where there are mostly families with children, 350 people in number, he said. Also from Pournara, the minister added, 600 people have been transferred to the accommodation centre at the Lakes in Menoyia. But, he continued, there is an influx of 60-85 migrants daily from the green line that end up in Pournara, noting that the overcrowding and increased flows also pose a problem in managing the pandemic within the centre.
Nikos Nouris said that in the last two years there has been an increase in the flow of migrants and political asylum seekers from sub-Saharan African countries, as well as from India and Pakistan. He said they were in contact with the authorities of the latter two countries for the return of migrants from there. About 3,000-4,000 economic migrants from safe countries will return home within the year, he added. The MFA said many from sub-Saharan Africa say they are flying in via Istanbul to the occupied territories and crossing the green line.
Regarding the time taken to process asylum applications, Nouris said that in 2021, when the migration policy was first implemented, 16,548 applications were completed and more than 10,500 were rejected. Despite this, he noted, on 1 January 2022, the number of pending political asylum applications was around 18,800.
Noouris described as offensive the comment by AKEL MP George Koukoumas that they maintain bad conditions in reception centres to prevent new flows of migrants to Cyprus and referred to positive comments by European officials on the management of the migration issue and the situation in the Pournara reception centre.
Noouris described as offensive the comment by AKEL MP George Koukoumas that they maintain bad conditions in reception centres to prevent new flows of migrants to Cyprus and referred to positive comments by European officials on the management of the migration issue and the situation in the Pournara reception centre.
The Minister asked the Parliament to be "in the forefront" for the implementation of the strict legislation on the imposition of severe penalties on smugglers, considering that this could be a message to the smuggling countries, saying that those who put 60-70 people in backpackers can make half a million with two such trips. "I ask for your help to be relentless on the issue of traffickers."
Nouris cited police figures that 64% of serious crimes involve foreigners and that asylum seekers in Cyprus have reached 4.6% of the total population.
On migrant returns, Mr. Nouris said that the DR voluntarily returned 2,200 people last year to various countries.He called for EU support for the return, saying that the biggest problem is Turkey, where 85 per cent of the migrants come from but which does not recognise the DR. There are return agreements, he said, with Georgia and Lebanon, talks with Pakistan are at an advanced stage, and an agreement with Nepal is in the pipeline. Next week, he said, he will discuss this issue with his French counterpart, from whom he will ask for help for French-speaking African countries.
He noted that because Cyprus does not belong to the Schengen zone, it cannot return migrants to their countries of origin or provenance. She also mentioned that for some months now, a Cyprus Consulate in Damascus has been operating again.
Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Anastasia Anthousi referred to the Commission on the procedures after the migrants leave Pournara, the obligation to register on the lists for finding a job in order to get the money for their subsistence. He also said that they are in the process of registering electronically the areas where migrants are located, the countries of origin. The data, she said, will be analysed in order to avoid incidents of ghettoisation.
Anthousi spoke about the obligations that the RS has towards unaccompanied children, whose care is in the hands of the YECs. In 2015, she said, they had 114 applications from unaccompanied minors, in 2021 there were 213 and currently there are 300 applications in Purnara. He also noted that the refusal of some to undergo medical examinations to determine if they are indeed minors makes things difficult.
Nouris said in response to a question by ELAM MP Sotiris Ioannou that in the last five years the EU has given 114 million euros in aid to Cyprus for the needs of the migration problem and the RoC spent an additional 178 million euros from taxpayers' money, he said, while for 2022, from national resources, there are 50 million euros for migration in the budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Assistant Police Chief, Mr. Mavris referred to the contribution of the police in Pournara, the process of depositions and collection of information on asylum seekers and following questions from MPs members of the Committee, he said that no evidence of any of the migrants being a terrorist has been identified to initiate court proceedings against them. When there is evidence, he said, the person is monitored.
He also said that there have been allegations of 47 cases of traffickers, some of whom have been brought before courts and sentenced to a maximum of 6 years in prison.
At Purnara in December alone, the coordinator of the centre reported that 449 people went there. The asylum service employs about 81 translators for communication needs, but there is a shortage of French speakers and the help of those present was requested to find such people. There are 283 unaccompanied children within the centre and procedures have been completed for those who have relatives in Cyprus and can, with the approval of the relevant services, stay with them.
There are large numbers from Congo, Cameroon, Guinea and Nigeria at the centre.
Chloraka
In discussing the shelters where the migrants are staying in Chloraka, the Minister said the unsuitability of the building was reported to the relevant authorities, as well as the transfer of unsuitable water that has been going on for about two years. It was also said that an administrative fine was imposed on the owner.
Referring to the migrants in Chloraka, he said it was found that many men were working illegally. He even spoke of owners of guesthouses taking advantage of migrant benefits and poor living conditions.
Statements to the media
Speaking after leaving the meeting, the Minister of Interior said he would raise the issue of guarding the Green Line again next Thursday at the meeting of Interior Ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania, when he and my counterparts, where they will visit the Lithuania-Belarus border section to see "how Lithuania, with the support of the EU, has taken concrete measures to prevent illegal entry into European territory of migrants from Belarus".
"And it is exactly the same that I will seek to adopt for the case of our own country on the Green Line, where for the fifth consecutive year there continues to be this channeling of all these people into our country," he added.
Nouris also said that the electronic surveillance of the Green Line is under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence and the purchase of surveillance cameras and its implementation will start from the second half of 2022.
The President of the Human Rights Commission, Irini Charalambidou said that they are particularly focusing on the issue of underage refugees who need to be put into integration programs as soon as possible and learn the Greek language so that they can be assimilated into society and become healthy units in society. They understand that there is fear of continuous and new flows but this should not prevent us from managing the issues with full respect for human dignity, he added.
After the Commission's visit to Pournara, he said, corrective measures were taken, such as increasing the number of beds and moving people to the centre in Menoyia. He raised the issue of using people with training who could provide for others at the reception centre.
DISY MP Rita Superman spoke about the importance of the role of the Police not only in investigating cases of illegal immigration but also in linking the incidents with trafficking in persons as in the cases of Chloraka, Pera Chorio, women prostituting themselves in Kokkinotrimithia and the ex officio obligation of the Police to handle such incidents. He also noted that the recovery plan envisages, among other things, planning for the operation of two more juvenile facilities in Famagusta and Paphos Districts in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration.
ELAM MP Sotiris Ioannou spoke of an organised plan by Turkey to Islamise the free areas, saying that the Cypriot taxpayer wasted 178 million euros in conditions of austerity for the maintenance of political asylum seekers, who live in our neighbourhoods and have been ghettoised and advertise their training in political rifles in the MDCs. ELAM, she said, is in favour of a strict immigration policy and cited Denmark as an example with the inclusion of Damascus and other areas in Syria as safe for returning migrants.
The MEP of the Ecologists, Alexandra Attalidou called for coordination of the many services, noting that through international databases no asylum seeker with a terrorist past was found. This, she said, was used by some political forces to terrorize people and the government did not deny it, which she considers a dangerous instrumentalization. He wondered why we have so many Indian political asylum seekers, which is not the case in any other country and said it was revealed today that there are Cypriots working with people engaged in labour or sex trafficking
Source: CNA
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