Filenews 4 September 2023 - by Ioanna Mantipia
Scenes of chaos and terror were experienced on Friday night by citizens, women and children and owners of premises in the coastal area of Molos.
The nightmarish things they describe to "F" cause goosebumps while they declare that they no longer feel safe in a city that hosts thousands of foreigners. Most of the damage was repaired, but the mental injuries and fear will accompany those who were at Molos that night trying to escape the area so as not to be injured.
The damage caused by the thugs was caused to premises belonging to foreign persons, who left their country for a better future and managed to set up a small business in Limassol in order to survive.
Speaking to "F", Dao, the mother of many children from Vietnam and owner of a convenience store, says with tears in her eyes that the damage amounts to several thousand euros. "I have been in Cyprus for many years, married to a Cypriot. Together with my underage children we are fighting for a living. We never bothered anyone," she says, visibly sad. She explains that the shop was closed and the masked men managed to break the shutters and get inside. They then stole the money from the cash register as well as cigarettes and lit a fire inside the premises.
The Deputy Ministry of Welfare will financially support the mother of many children for the immediate needs of the family and will provide them with psychosocial support. At the same time, citizens on their own initiative undertook to raise money to directly support Dao.
The scene was reminiscent of a war zone, says a woman from Ukraine who had gone with her children to Molos to play in the playground. "They were running with hoods next to our children who were scared, shaking and crying endlessly." Panicked, she says, she picked them up and started running down the street to escape.
The area was dominated by a feeling of fear and insecurity, with some police officers calling – in retrospect – for citizens to leave the place. So did colleagues in the media, who, in an effort to protect citizens, urged them to leave the area immediately. There were also foreigners in the place who, dumbfounded, watched the outrages unaware of danger.
"F" witnessed an attack on a foreigner, with masked men chasing him, immobilizing him, throwing him into the coastal road, beating him up and stealing his cell phone.
Speaking to "F", the manager of a hotel unit on the coastal front, Kostas Christodoulides, said that "the whole situation was a nonsense". As he explains, on their return the hooligans began to cause damage, even breaking the glass case of the hotel. "We were outside when suddenly they started attacking us because they saw someone inside the hotel taking a picture. We told them: Stop, we are Cypriots. The police did not work properly. Totally unprofessional, without a program, without measures. They lost control from the beginning," he notes. Among other things, he claims that the masked men were about 40 to 50 people who at one point dispersed in various places. "I'm really ashamed of all that happened. They even attacked a Greek Cypriot woman who was with her children."
The next day finds about ten property owners after brainless people caused tens of thousands of euros in damage. With tears in his eyes, the owner of a premises with Syrian food, tells "F" that the rioters left nothing standing. "They broke everything, threw Molotov cocktails and burned down the shop, inside and out. We didn't do anything to them, we make our bread, honestly," he said.
