Cyprus to migrants: ‘The route is no longer open’
Jitters in Nicosia as fears of a refugee wave from Lebanon grow, the deal with the EU and ways to prevent an influx and its impact
The sea journey from the Lebanese coast to Cyprus – the closest EU member-state – takes just 10 hours in the motorboats used by traffickers. The distance from Larnaca is about 112 nautical miles. Lebanon is the country with the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world, hosting some 2 million Syrians and 200,000 Palestinians.
At the moment, Cyprus’ refugee camps in Pournara and Kofinou are almost empty. But just five months ago, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides declared a migration crisis, stating that “the flows are unmanageable.”
Cyprus follows a set of strict and, in many cases, legally controversial measures that have radically reduced flows. But they have also put it at odds with humanitarian organizations, UNHCR and the United Nations peacekeeping force on the island (UNFICYP).
The migration issue remains one of the hottest issues on Cyprus’ political agenda, with far-right party ELAM steadily climbing higher in polls and many analysts noting that were it not for the sharp rise of TikToker Phidias, it would have performed even better in last June’s European elections.
Earlier this month, Cyprus was convicted by the European Court of Human Rights for pushbacks performed by the Cypriot Coast Guard. Meanwhile, incidents of racist violence are on the rise, with the latest victims being food deliverers who were savagely beaten, a year after racist pogroms in Chloraka and Limassol.
“Cyprus has always had migrants, we have learned to live with them. The problem arose when the numbers started to become huge, causing negative perceptions in Cypriot society,” said the deputy minister of migration and international protection, Nicholas Ioannides.
The ‘message’
Lebanon and Cyprus signed a bilateral agreement as early as 2020, according to which migrants trying to reach the island will be “intercepted” and sent back. However, due to the military escalation on the Lebanese-Israeli border after the Hamas attack, Beirut authorities have been less focused on stemming the flows.
The result was that last spring, when the weather improved, boats carrying hundreds of asylum seekers, mostly Syrian men, arrived on the Cypriot coasts.
Cyprus has unilaterally announced the suspension of processing of asylum applications for Syrian nationals, without giving a time frame for the duration of the extraordinary measure.
For the deputy minister of migration, the reduction of flows observed is the result of a combination of measures: “Patrols, cooperation with Lebanon and generally the message that the Republic of Cyprus sends to traffickers that the route to Cyprus is no longer open. All these have created a deterrent.”
The Cypriot president had visited Beirut in May, together with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, when a €1 billion financial package for Lebanon was announced until 2027, and cooperation with Lebanese authorities to prevent illegal migration was requested. However, international organizations openly accuse the Cypriot authorities of illegal returns, a charge the government denies.
“In reality, it is difficult to identify what exactly contributed to the reduction in flows,” said political analyst Christophoros Christophorou. Certainly, as he notes, the suspension of the processing of Syrians’ asylum applications, which came to over 26,000, contributed to a large extent, but also the launch of practical measures with coast guard patrols that, according to international organizations, were also taking place outside Cyprus’ territorial waters.
In a report published in September, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Lebanon and Cyprus of “working together” to prevent Syrian refugees from reaching Europe and then forcibly deporting them to danger back in Syria. “I reject the accusations,” said the deputy migration minister, “the cooperation with Lebanon is not about sending people to Syria, it is about controlling its coastline.
“And in any case, we have seen tens of thousands of Syrians leaving Lebanon and voluntarily returning to Syria. There are several areas in Syria where hostilities are not taking place. However, we are not going to send anybody back until there is an understanding with UNHCR, the EU and we all agree that they can return.”
Earlier this month, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Cyprus for violating international law and ruled that the Cypriot Coast Guard had returned two Syrian nationals to Lebanon (pushback) after they had entered Cypriot territorial waters to seek asylum.
“The expected conviction of our country for ‘pushbacks’ undoubtedly affects its image negatively,” says Dr Aphrodite Papachristodoulou, an academic at Galway University and a lawyer, noting that the court underlined that states cannot avoid responsibility that arises from international law, based on bilateral agreements with other countries.
The Republic of Cyprus is among the countries urgently calling for the EU to reclassify Syria’s status and designate safe areas so that asylum claims can be rejected, and they can potentially repatriate applicants.
Earlier this month, however – in a ruling binding on all member-states – the EU court rejected any consideration of segmenting a third country into “safe” and “non-safe” areas, enforcing a legal obstacle, on a pan-European level, to the efforts to return asylum seekers to Syria.
Flows from buffer zone
Another entry of migratory flows into Cyprus is from the occupied territories, through the Green Line. Cypriot authorities have previously denounced “universities” in the northern part of the island, referring to cases of third-country nationals who arrived in the occupied areas on “student visas” and almost simultaneously went to the free areas, where they applied for asylum in the Republic of Cyprus.
In recent months, the confrontation between the UN peacekeeping force and Cyprus has intensified, as the Cypriot authorities have been keeping migrants who want to apply for asylum in Cyprus trapped in the buffer zone. UNFYCIP and UNHCR have repeatedly called on the Cypriot authorities to provide unhindered access to asylum procedures and to address the overcrowding inside the buffer zone. Among those trapped are women and children, who have had to deal with extreme heatwaves and, most recently, flooding.
“The term pushback is being abused,” said Ioannides. “This is used when we have a border and one state pushes people to another state or to the sea, where their lives will be at risk. That did not happen here. What we are doing is monitoring the Green Line so that they don’t cross into the free areas.”
“We are well aware of the concerns raised by UNHCR and UNFICYP, we are in dialogue with them and what we are saying is that obviously the Republic of Cyprus has obligations, but we cannot overlook the obligations of a third state that at least tolerates this situation,” he said:
“All these people didn’t magically end up there, they traveled via Turkey to the occupied territories and then to the Green Line. But it is a matter of principle for us not to turn the Green Line into a migrant route. We have been in a structured dialogue with UNHCR and UNFICYP for the last weeks, we have shown goodwill to solve the problem and I believe that in the next few weeks it will be solved.”
