Filenews 11 October 2021 - by Dora Christodoulou
A definitive end is now put to the practice of many holders of Georgian passports arriving in Cyprus as visitors and ending up staying on the territory of the Republic seeking political refugee status.
The issue has been of great concern in recent months to the police authorities of the province, according to revealing information of "F", mainly after the arrest of several persons for the offences of illegal stay in the territory of the Republic. These are Georgians who were identified and arrested on different occasions in parts of the Paphos district and who were found to have a fundamentally common background in their actions and aspirations.
It was found in particular that everyone had arrived in Cyprus in 2019, before the pandemic, through Larnaka airport and were granted a residence permit as visitors. However, it was subsequently found that all of them applied for political asylum. When their request was rejected, they proceeded to submit a request to open their file and their request was also rejected. Since then, they have all remained on the territory of the Republic illegally.
It was also found that some of them had revisited Cyprus and were deported, but they seem to have returned to Cyprus through the occupied areas. In all cases these Georgians were detained until their deportation was settled.
Just the day before yesterday another person originating from that country was arrested in Paphos, having been found to be under the influence of narcotic substances, in order to reveal when he was brought before the Police that he was an illegal resident in Cyprus under the regime mentioned above.
