CYPRUS: Boat arrives at Larnaca with 33 migrants on board

Cyprus has received 33 mainly Syrian migrants who arrived by boat at Larnaca after being escorted to shore by marine police, authorities said on Tuesday.

Cypriot police said they had received information that a boat from the Middle East was heading toward the island and a coastguard patrol boat spotted an eight-metre vessel crowded with migrants inside Cyprus waters.

The 33 migrants – 32 are Syrian and one is Lebanese – were being processed by police before being transferred to a reception centre outside the capital Nicosia.

The migrant group consists of 17 men, 10 children and six woman, they all appear to be in a healthy condition, said police.

Cyprus has warned Brussels it has come under pressure from increased irregular migration flows ranking it top in first-time asylum claims in relation to its population of under a million.

Earlier this month, Cyprus requested fellow EU member states to accept for relocation 5000 of its migrants to significantly alleviate the “disproportionate pressures and severe challenges” faced by the country.

Interior Minister Constantinos Petrides sent the official request to the EU Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, and to his EU counterparts.

Petrides said Cyprus is currently hosting around 9,000 people granted protection only in the past few years.

Syrian nationals account for over 26 per cent of the overall migratory influx to Cyprus from 2016 onwards.

According to available data, the number arriving in Cyprus and applying for asylum between January and June 2019 is nearly 7,000, while the backlog of applications awaiting examination has increased to almost 15,000.

Cyprus is located 100 miles (160 kilometres) from Syria’s Mediterranean coast, has not seen the massive inflow of migrants experienced by Turkey and Greece.