The Minister of Interior Mr.
"Citizens have become familiar with the problem we face in the field of migration, especially after the visit of the President of the Republic last Monday to the First Reception Centre "Pournara".
They have also become aware of our efforts to relieve the First Reception Centre by transferring 600 adult residents from "Pournara" to the "Lakes" Accommodation Centre, as well as 150 unaccompanied minors, for whom the Social Welfare Services have today also secured the approval of the Council of Ministers for transfer to hotel accommodation in the free Famagusta.
At a time when the Council of Ministers at its meeting today also approved additional funds to manage the current situation, in the last 24 hours we received 317 irregular migrants, all coming from the occupied territories via Turkey, and I note that 292 of the 317 are single men up to 40 years old.
The examination of the migrants' travel documents, as well as the testimonies of the migrants themselves, clearly proves that they have been instrumentalized by Turkey, since all of them, without exception, arrived from African countries in the occupied territories, via Istanbul, with the final destination being the airport of the occupied "Tymbou", even holding a 60-day residence permit from the pseudo-state.
This is confirmed by the data that we will present and which will be forwarded in my own letter to the European Commission - to the responsible Vice-President, Mr Margaritis Schinas, and to the responsible Commissioner, Ms Ilva Johansson.
It is for this reason that the Ministry of Interior has set as its top priority both the effective management of the Green Line and the acceleration of the return of those illegally residing in the Republic of Cyprus.
The data we have, which are of course very numerous - for reasons of personal data protection we will avoid giving names - testify from the stamps on these passports that, while there is departure from the specific African country - in this case it is Nigeria - the very next day there is arrival at the airport of the pseudo-state in Tymbou and the granting of the 60-day residence permit at the same time as the stamp.
There is a lot of data that has been collected. All of them, without exception, will be forwarded to the EU, together of course with any other evidence we think should be used to prove conclusively what we have been repeating and saying for so long, that there is clear instrumentalisation on the part of Turkey."
Asked about the 317 who have arrived in the last 24 hours, whether additional measures will be taken at the points of transit to avoid a possible mass arrival in the coming days, the Minister replied that "on the issues of surveillance of the Green Line we are extremely sparing in our statements", explaining that "there are issues of national security". "The guards are aware," he said, and the security forces are aware. "What we are facing is something unprecedented and that is what we want to present today," the minister concluded.
(EFYs)
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