Refugees who entered ‘illegally’ ask for ‘forgiveness’
A GROUP of South Cyprus-bound Syrian refugees abandoned at sea pleaded for “forgiveness” after they were accused of entering the TRNC “illegally”.
The seven men, four women and six children, including a fourmonth-old baby, were spotted by a shepherd off the coast of Taşlıca on the southern coast of the Karpaz peninsula at around 4.30pm last Friday.
He alerted the police, telling them that the refugees on a boat
were “overwhelmed by hunger, thirst and the heat”.
Police officers arriving on the scene and a resident from Taşlıca village gave bottles of water to the group.
They said they had been drifting in a boat for about 10 hours after the
captain “abandoned” them because the vessesl had “run out of fuel”. The boat then ran aground 15 metres from the shore.
The refugees were given health checks and tests for Covid-19 and taken to a student domitory in Gazimağusa by police offices from Ziyamet police station, before statements were taken from some of them.
The following day they were brought before Gazimağusa District Court for a detention request hearing. One refugee was given the right to speak in court on behalf of the group.
“There is a war in Syria,” the representative said. “We run from death as much as we can. We set out to go to South Cyprus. We had a misfortune on the way. The diesel ran out and we drifted here. Forgive us.”
Prosecutor Hasan Bosnak called police officer Ercan Kunduracı, who
works in the İskele Police Department’s Judicial Branch, as a witness to convey the facts regarding the matter.
Kunduracı said that the suspects were “caught in the act” and arrested. He said they set off from Syria with an “unknown captain” on an eight-metre-long wooden fishing boat named “Rısk Allah” which is registered in Lazkiye, Syria. They entered the TRNC from a spot that is “not an approved port” of entry.
Officer Kunduracı told the court police are searching for the boat’s captain “whose name they have identified” and that more time was needed to complete the investigation, a request granted by Judge Seran Bensen, who ordered that the suspects be remanded in police custody.