Filenews 21 April 2021 - by Michalis Hatzivasilis
Nine wood trucks have been collected so far by the Municipality of Strovolos from various areas, which have been gathered to be used in the lighting of lampages, with the young people maintaining an illegal and dangerous custom.
The problem with collecting rubble for the bonfires is pancyprian and municipalities as well as communities try to control it by calling the Police during their scraping. Even wooden constructions from schools (desks and chairs) are stolen by young people to set up the lamprazia, while as the mayor of Strovolos Andreas Papacharalambous told "F", their movement costs many thousands of euros to the municipality.
As he said, when there is information from the citizens then a workshop of the municipality intervenes with a bulldozer and truck and with the escort of the Police move the wood collected by some for the custom of lampatzia. Although the phenomenon weakens year after year, Mayor Strovolos said, it still exists.
According to Mr Papacharalambous, although the municipalities are understaffed because of the pandemic, they also have to deal with this phenomenon, from which the safety of children is at risk, while in their groups are also involved with drugs. "We are against this custom. There are so many other customs for Easter and I do not think there is any reason to preserve what creates many problems. We're trying to push it," he said. the same thing happened last year (photo), while the restrictive measures of the pandemic do not prevent the phenomenon this year either.
By Easter, Mr. Papacharalambous said, more campaigns will follow, and together with the police, we will grind down all of Strovolos. We call on people to cooperate so that there is no problem,' he added. According to him, there was a complaint that young people ransacked school halls to get various items for the bonfire.
It is noted that in one case, people had hidden wood (mainly pallets) on the third floor of an apartment building, while many objects were stolen from built-up buildings. In open spaces, even old sofas were found which they would throw in the battle of the bonfires. Also, in various areas young people compete with each other who will gather the most wood for the burning of Judas and often there are dangerous conflicts between them.
