Filenews 19 January 2022 - by Marios Demetriou
"The supervision of the Green Line for the reduction of large migratory flows in the Republic of Cyprus and the acceleration of the procedures for the return of migrants to their countries, are the two immediate priorities of the Ministry of Interior for 2022", stressed yesterday the Minister of Interior Nikos Nouris, speaking at the three-hour session of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights on the management of this problem and the living conditions in the centre for the first hosting of migrants, "Pournara".
Christos Mavris, Deputy Chief of Police, Anastasia Anthousi, Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Alexandros Alexandros, director of the Department of Labour, Giannis Nikolaidis, director of the Department of Road Transport, Konstantinos Papantoniou, officer of medical services and from the Asylum Service, the head Maria Chrysomila and the officer Lora Iakovidou were invited and participated in the discussion. According to Nikos Nouris, "85% of illegal immigrants come from the Green Line". He said the people who will be returned this year "are around 3-4,000 who are clearly economic migrants coming from four safe countries. Already – he added – we managed on Christmas day and returned 250 to Vietnam, now we are in the process of returning 400 to Pakistan, while we have a list of Nepalese people destined for return and we are in constant consultation with India to return a large number of its nationals." He stressed in particular that "an extremely important chapter concerning human rights is traffickers. I want to see, in front of the House Human Rights Committee, the competent state agencies to implement the legislation that the House voted for, ie the rapid bringing and punishment of traffickers of people with 12 years' imprisonment, as perhaps the most important deterrent measure. The message must go that we will be relentless with the traffickers who carry people with rotten ship from Syria for a fee." Mr. Nouris also referred to the issue of crime, reiterating that "the Police announced that foreigners are involved in 64% of serious crimes in the Republic of Cyprus in recent times".
The interior minister spoke in figures about the overcrowding in "Pournara" with more than 2,000, "despite the fact", as he said, "that we have transferred more than 600 to the closed centre of the Limnes region in Menoya". He also talked about the launch of migrant arrivals in 2021 from countries in sub-Saharan Africa via Turkey, which he said are passed by Turkish Cypriot smugglers through Lefka, Troulli, Deryneia and Athienou. He said that with interventions by his ministry, "we have reset the marriages of asylum seekers" and that "by decisions of the Council of Ministers we have limited the number of virtual students, we have limited the sea flows with our agreement with Lebanon". He assured, however, that in the past months and days he "received congratulations from European officials, including the current French presidency of the EU, for the work of the Interior Ministry and the Asylum Service in managing the huge and disproportionate pressures and the effective management of the Pournara and Kofinou reception and accommodation centres in the midst of the pandemic".
"The effort of the Human Rights Committee is to achieve constructive cooperation in order to provide solutions to the problems of the residents of "Pournara", said after the meeting the President of the Committee, Member of Parliament for AKEL, Irene Charalambidou. We are focusing particularly on the issue of underage children," he added, "who should be included in integration programs in Cypriot society. We understand that there is a fear of new flows of immigrants, but this must not prevent us from managing the matter as a state with full respect for human dignity. After our visit to "Pournara" corrective measures were taken, the number of beds were increased and guests moved to the centre in Limnes. I raised with the Ministry of Transport the issue of regulating the employment of asylum seekers who, until their application is examined, are given the opportunity to be employed. But how will they be employed when they are not granted the right to hold a driver's license, since the professions in which they can be employed require a driving licence?"
They call on the Police-Ministry of Interior to take measures
In a statement, DISY MP Rita Superman pointed out that, "from the discussion it appeared that there is enough knowledge about the entry points from the Green Line, but also about the data of the traffickers and their modus operandi. The role of the Police is important, not only for the investigation of cases of illegal immigration, but also for the connection of incidents with human trafficking, as in the cases of Chlorakas, Pera Chorio, and of foreign women prostitute in Kokkinotrimithia. The ex officio obligation of the police to handle such incidents is also important and it must investigate such cases on the basis of the rules of investigation of organised crime and not of common crime, in cooperation with Europol and Eurojust. The Deputy Ministry of Welfare mentioned the problems arising from the non-performance of DNA tests on all unaccompanied minors, with the dangerous possibility that some of them are adults and are placed in the facilities of minors when they leave "Pournara".
In her own statement, the MP of the Movement of Ecologists Alexandra Attalidou spoke among other things "about dangerous instrumentalization when asylum seekers are presented by some media and some political forces as terrorists and the responsibility lies with the Government that allows this phraseology. As far as the nationality of asylum seekers is concerned, she added, it is observed that the largest group in Cyprus is Indian, while no other EU country has asylum seekers from India. This shows that there are "windows" that some people use to commit serious criminal offenses after it was revealed during the session that there are Cypriot citizens who cooperate with human traffickers for sexual or labour exploitation of asylum seekers. I demand that the first immigration officer, who is the Minister of the Interior, Mr Nouris, coordinate the relevant services of the state. In relation to the guarding of the Green Line, we consider that it is unacceptable for us as a state to take measures that will create a hard border, because we do not accept the partition of our country", she concluded.
