Group cuts buffer zone razor wire

RAZOR wire laid by Greek Cypriot authorities on the southern side of the buffer zone to prevent refugees and others clandestinely crossing from the TRNC has been cut by a South-based group just over a week after it was laid down.

Members of Os Dame (No More) gathered last Saturday waving banners with peace messages on them such as “One Cyprus”.

A video of the barbed wire being cut with wire cutters was shared on their social media page, with faces blurred, where the organisation noted that in the days counting down towards the “11th round of talks on the Cyprus issue” the “symbolic placement of 11km of barbed wire along the green line (300km long ...) looks like an attempt by the [Greek Cypriot] government to get political value from those who want division and do not want refugees and migrants and are ashamed to say so”.

Os Dame said the same policy brought about both “the barbed wire that cuts Cyprus in half and the barbed wire that traps the migrants in the Pournara detention camp”.

After cutting the wire Os Dame activists then “brought it to Nicosia, and placed it around a real source of risks to our lives and freedom: the Ministry of Interior”.

The group, which argued that the detention centres for asylum seekers are “miserable”, expressed their belief that “state authoritarianism goes hand in hand with racism and division” and that was why they cut the razor wire. Greek Cypriot media reported that police had launched an investigation into the incident.

The United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (Unifcyp) spokesman Aleem Siddique had previously told Cyprus Today that Unifcyp had “concerns” over the installation of the razor wire.