Filenews 24 July 2023 - by Dora Christodoulou
The state authorities now seem to be dealing drastically with the practice of many holders of passports from Georgia and other former Soviet states arriving in Cyprus as visitors and ending up staying in the territory of the Republic seeking political refugee status.
The issue has been of great concern to the police authorities of the Pafos district in recent months, according to revealing information by "F", mainly after the arrest of several persons for the offences of illegal stay in the territory of the Republic.
These are citizens of the former Eastern bloc who were identified and arrested on different occasions in parts of Pafos and who were found to have essentially a common background in their actions and aspirations.
It was found in particular that they had all arrived in Cyprus in 2019, before the pandemic, mainly through Larnaka airport and were granted a residence permit as visitors. However, it was subsequently found that all had applied for political asylum. When their request was rejected, they proceeded to submit a request to open their file and this request was also rejected.
It was also found that some of them had visited Cyprus before and were deported, but appear to have returned to Cyprus through the occupied areas.
