CYPRUS: EU to send technical team for assistance on migration spike

An EU technical team on migration will visit Cyprus to discuss additional assistance to Nicosia which is struggling to manage a spike in asylum seekers arriving by boat.

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The move comes after EU Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos had talks in Nicosia last month while Cyprus has lobbied Brussels to do more over the increased influx of migration to the island.

“At the instructions of Avramopoulos, a technical team of the DG General on Migration will visit Cyprus to meet Cypriot officials to examine ways for additional assistance through the Emergency Funds of the Asylum Funds,” Interior Minister Constantinos Petrides told CNA.

The visit – scheduled for Tuesday – was agreed during the meeting between Avramopoulos and the Ministerial Committee on Asylum.

According to Petrides, the visit will determine the additional assistance to be granted to Cyprus both by the Emergency Fund and other funds.

In the first eight months of 2018, requests for asylum in Cyprus continue to show an upward trend, namely 55% higher than in the same period of 2017.

There has been a sharp rise recently of mainly Syrian migrants coming from Turkey and Lebanon by boat to seek asylum in Cyprus.

The island is top of the EU list – in relation to its size – for the number of first-time asylum claims it receives.