NICOSIA — The temperature is above 35 degrees in Kofinou, and residents of Cyprus’ only refugee camp are hiding from the midday sun in makeshift houses made out of containers. Some children brave the heat playing outside.
They’re part of a surge of asylum seekers and migrants who’ve arrived in Cyprus over the last two years; the island now has the EU’s highest number of asylum seekers per capita. The influx is stretching the country’s reception system, creating fears of a humanitarian crisis and populist backlash.
Ahmed, 31, is an English teacher from Idlib, a Syrian city scarred by bombings and bloodshed during the eight-year civil war. He fled Syria with his wife and two children, crossing the Turkish border on foot. After paying $10,000 to smugglers, they reached Cyprus in December 2017. From here they hoped to travel on to mainland Europe and then to Canada.
But they’re stuck in Kofinou. Cyprus doesn’t grant refugee status to Syrians, instead classifying them under “subsidiary protection status” which offers fewer rights and doesn’t allow onward travel. The expectation is that once the situation in Syria stabilizes, they’ll go home.
“When the war finishes they kick us away … Here in Cyprus, I feel myself still in Syria,” said Ahmed, who asked not to use his real name to protect his identity, while pouring black tea in the converted container that serves as his one-room family home. It is almost entirely occupied by a double bunk bed and their few belongings — children’s toys, a kettle and pots, some clothes and books.
“With huge number of unplanned migration, at some point you exceed your absorbing capacity, and that’s where a humanitarian crisis is created” — Constantinos Petrides, Cyprus’ Interior Minister
The surge in asylum seekers arriving in Cyprus is a result of the island’s geography — it’s close to Lebanon and Turkey, making it tempting for people fleeing the war in Syria. Its complex history as a divided country makes it harder to regulate migrant inflows.
That’s made Cyprus a magnet for asylum seekers at a time when the European Commission says arrivals in the wider eastern Mediterranean — a region that the Commission defines as including Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria — were down by 90 percent in 2018 compared with 2015.
The Republic of Cyprus, with a population of about 850,000, saw asylum applications rise by 70 percent in 2018 compared with the previous year, after a 56 percent rise in 2016. So far it has granted protection to 15,000 people and an equivalent number of applications are pending a decision — a number that exceeds 3.5 percent of its population. And in the first four months of 2019, there were 4,500 new applications, according to government figures.
Besides Syrians — who represented a quarter of total applicants in 2018 — the next largest groups came from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Cameroon, according to Eurostat.
Kokkinotrimithia Emergency Refugee Camp, operated by the Civil Defense of the Republic | UNHCR Cyprus
“With huge number of unplanned migration, at some point you exceed your absorbing capacity, and that’s where a humanitarian crisis is created. We have prevented the crisis until now but I’m very concerned for the future,” Cyprus’ Interior Minister Constantinos Petrides told POLITICO.
Uncooperative neighbor
Cyprus’ unique politics are making it harder for the island to stem the inflow of asylum seekers. The Republic of Cyprus, an EU member since 2004, does not have control over the 38 percent of the island in the north, which has been under Turkish occupation since 1974. The south is internationally recognized, except by Turkey, while the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is only acknowledged by Ankara.
While Turkey struck a deal with the EU in 2016 to stop asylum seekers from reaching its borders — which has largely succeeded in halting large-scale migration to the EU via the Balkans and Greek islands — Ankara doesn’t enforce the deal when it comes to Cyprus. That gives refugees an entry point into the EU.
Asylum seekers largely arrive by boat — the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recorded 43 boat landings in 2018, split in half between the north and the south. Recently, the Cypriot government has also registered an increase in arrivals by plane from Turkey to the north.
From there, asylum seekers cross into the Republic of Cyprus through the Green Line, a U.N. patrolled buffer zone dividing the island.
“The main reason for this influx and the migratory pressure is the result of migratory flows coming from or via Turkey,” Petrides told reporters in Brussels late last month. “This new method of sending refugees by plane …. could not be carried out without at least the tolerance of the [Turkish] authorities. And it’s not just tolerance … I think it’s very clear that we have an institutional kind of smuggling.”
Kofinou reception center | UNHCR Cyprus
The migration issue is exacerbating tensions between Cyprus and Turkey, a relationship that is already sour thanks to Ankara’s insistence on drilling for oil and gas in waters claimed by Cyprus. A second Turkish ship will arrive in disputed waters this week, according to Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez.
Turkey’s foreign ministry declined to comment, but the Turkish Cypriot government rejected the charge that most asylum seekers are coming from Turkey. “The claims of the Greek Cypriot side that Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot side are encouraging an increasing number of refugees to cross to the Greek Cypriot side through the north is blatantly misleading and totally baseless,” it said in an emailed statement.
Silent EU
The surge in asylum seekers also creates problems for the EU. Cyprus, along with other Mediterranean EU countries, wants the rest of the bloc to help accept asylum seekers, but that’s strongly rejected by Central European countries like Poland and Hungary, and there isn’t much enthusiasm elsewhere in the EU.
“Brussels is handicapped in the absence of an agreement between the member states on how to proceed in concluding an integrated and holistic agreement and approach,” said Petrides.
“If we continue to see this increase in numbers it is a question of a few months before it becomes a reception crisis.” — Katja Saha, UNHCR representative in Cyprus
In the absence of an EU-wide approach, Cyprus is trying to establish ad-hoc voluntary relocation schemes with other countries.
“Two or three countries that have expressed a first will to take part in this, a couple of them from their own initiative, but the invitation is open to all, especially the big ones that have more capacity,” said Petrides.
Domestically, the government is also seeking a way to legally deny entry to people coming from the north who do not qualify for humanitarian protection. The plan is to establish a transit zone — much like in international airports — where asylum applications can be quickly processed and those who are rejected can be denied entry.
Kokkinotrimithia Emergency Refugee Camp, operated by the Civil Defense of the Republic | UNHCR Cyprus
“We do believe we do have the legal framework in order to deny entry of third country nationals to the controlled areas of the republic,” said the interior minister.
Fears of populism
The rise in numbers is straining the reception system, leading to homelessness and leaving people vulnerable to trafficking and sexual exploitation.
“You have more and more people living in the streets who have no access to shelter, no access to food … If we continue to see this increase in numbers it is a question of a few months before it becomes a reception crisis,” said Katja Saha, UNHCR representative in Cyprus.
Kofinou, which can host up to 350 people, is already full. The government is planning to build two new centers that would bring the total to 1,000 places, but this will only marginally improve things.
There are also fears that the increasing migratory pressure will fuel populism. Εlam, a far-right party founded in 2008 as a spinoff of Greece’s Golden Dawn, won 8.25 percent of the vote in May’s European election — up from 2.69 percent in 2014, but still not enough to win a seat in the European Parliament.
Kofinou reception center | UNHCR Cyprus
“They kept banging on the issue of migration. It became their Trojan horse … Many people agree with the idea that we need some quota, some kind of limit,” said Charis Psaltis, associate professor of social and developmental psychology at the University of Cyprus.
Most Cypriots support the idea that there should be a limit on how many refugees can be let in, and that once this limit is reached no more should be accepted, according to a study by UNHCR polling Greek and Turkish Cypriots. A majority also reject the idea of permitting refugees to obtain citizenship after living in Cyprus for more than five years.
“If we don’t do something radically and now, the situation regarding the rise of populism in Cyprus cannot be avoided, and it’s very dangerous,” said Petrides.