Numbers fleeing conflict to TRNC on the increase

THE number of people fleeing conflict-ridden countries and arriving in the TRNC through “irregular” means has more than doubled since last year.

Police figures revealed that 142 refugees had been picked up this year after reaching North Cyprus illicitly, compared with 60 during 2016. Of this year’s number — mostly from Syria, but also from Somalia, Iran

and Nigeria — police said 105 were deported to Turkey and 37 handed over to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Just five illegal entrants were deported to Turkey last year, and 55 passed to the UNHCR.

However the Foreign Ministry said the number of refugees arriving through legal ports of entry had almost halved; 83 handed over to the UNHCR so far this year, compared with 159 last year.

Its director, Kemal Köprülü, said yesterday the vast majority were arriving from Syria and the ministry worked with the police, Interior Ministry and SOS Children’s Village in Lefkoşa to handle the influx.

Fezile Osum, a lawyer at the refugee unit of the SOS Children’s Village, said the increase in illicit refugee arrivals was largely down to more children entering the country.

She confirmed that there are currently 76 refugees, 26 of them children, registered with the charity, which has been acting as a gobetween for the arrivals and the UNHCR since the beginning of the year.

SOS provides legal and humanitarian assistance to the refugees under a deal struck with the UNHCR, as the international agency has no formal links with the TRNC government.

Such services had previously been provided by the Refugee Rights Association, also based in Lefkoşa. Ms Osum said “95 per cent” of refugees on her organisation’s books were Syrian, around half of whom had travelled directly from Turkey. Others were from Palestine, Iraq and Libya and other countries in Africa.

“The main reason [for the increase] is the ongoing civil war in Syria,” she said.

“People cannot renew their passports due to the situation. They cannot go anywhere via planes.”

Ms Osum continued: “The Syrian refugees are [given protected status] in Turkey, but they are coming here because of problems accessing basic rights [there] such as health care, education and accommodation.”

The lawyer said that there had also been asylum-seekers in South Cyprus crossing to North Cyprus over the last five years, but warned that a lack of legislation recognising asylum claims in the TRNC meant that many were simply deported to Turkey.

She said the TRNC state nonetheless had an “obligation” to “abide by international conventions” and called on the government to “immediately stop the detention and deportation of refugees” and enact a 2015 amendment to immigration laws recognising the rights of refugees.

“If a refugee faces the risk of death, torture, cruel or inhumane treatment, then our state needs to abide by [international treaties] and not deport them,” she added.