Filenews 14 July 2022 - by Dora Christodoulou
The state authorities now seem to be drastically confronting the practice of many holders of Georgian passports and other former Soviet states arriving in Cyprus as visitors and ending up staying on the territory of the Republic applying for political refugee status. The issue has been of great concern in recent months to the police authorities of the Pafos district, according to revealing information of "F", mainly after the arrest of several persons for the offenses of illegal stay on the territory of the Republic.
These are citizens of the former Eastern bloc who were identified and arrested on different occasions in parts of Paphos and who were found to have a common background in their actions and aspirations in essence. It was found in particular that they had all arrived in Cyprus in 2019, before the pandemic, through Larnaca airport and were granted a residence permit as visitors. However, it was subsequently found that they had all 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 visited Cyprus before and were deported, but appeared to have returned to Cyprus through the occupied areas. In all cases these people were detained until their deportation was settled.
This situation has for months provoked the organized reaction of the state departments involved, which with close and continuous cooperation have aimed at removing this illegality, with obvious positive results in recent times, according to a police source.
On the contrary to this aspect of the arrival of foreigners, the phenomenon of the over-concentration of citizens from African countries has been taking on ever-increasing proportions in Paphos recently. The continuous on a daily basis appearance of groups of people of African origin in the streets, districts and open spaces of the city and communities of the peri-urban area now seems to cause reactions from a large part of the population, even if in most cases this appearance is not accompanied by antisocial activities.
Neighbours and representatives of the local authorities, however, argue that this situation constitutes a very intense change in the demographic data that is causing concern and are now calling for the intervention of the official state to put an end to the uncontrolled movement of Africans to Paphos.
The feelings of concern and anxiety are reinforced by the now frequent cases of incidents between people of African and Arab origin, which have recently occupied the Paphos Police Department. Similar antisocial activities were recorded in the last few days in Emba, Chlorakas, and Tremithousa, but also in the centre of Paphos and especially in the areas inside and around the offices of the Technical Services of the Municipality of Paphos, which for a while were even recorded on mobile phones by citizens.
