The ship, which was heading to the territorial waters of the Republic of Cyprus and was part of the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, docked at 17:00 Friday afternoon with ten people on board, the Director General of the Cyprus Ports Authority, Anthimos Christodoulides, told CNA.
Mr. Christodoulides said that the ship initially wanted to dock at the Port of Latsi, however, because there was no space in Latsi, it was requested to go to Paphos and after a relevant check of all its papers and certificates and since everything was legal, they accepted its docking at the port of Kato Paphos.
According to the General Directorate of the Ports Authority, "we have checked all the documents and certificates of the vessel Siren and their completeness and validity were established."
In addition, Mr. Christodoulides said that the vessel was accepted as long as the decision of the Council of Ministers was not violated. Asked about this, Mr. Christodoulides said that there are 10 people on board the “Siren”.
At this stage, he continued, all legal procedures are being carried out with the Police and the Port Authority, whose members are carrying out the necessary checks to determine whether they are European citizens, or whether they are citizens of third countries, and so on.
The Italian-flagged vessel "Siren", which docked at the port of Kato Paphos, is expected to depart at around 5 pm on Saturday, according to a Paphos Ports Authority official.
As he told CNA, there were eight people on board the vessel, of whom five were citizens from European countries such as Britain and Ireland and three were citizens of third countries.
According to the Paphos Ports Authority official, some repairs were made to the vessel by a Canadian engineer who was on board the vessel, while some of those on board expressed their desire to abandon ship and flee.
Therefore, today the "Siren" is expected to change crew, as some people will leave Cyprus by air and other people are expected to arrive to board the vessel.
Food, water, electricity and fuel were transported to the ship. Two crew members were also provided with first aid by an ambulance crew without having to be hospitalized.
As reported, the "Siren" participated in the flotilla that attempted to break the maritime blockade of Gaza.
Source: CNA
