Anastasiades in plea against traffickers at EU-Africa summit

The Republic is pushing for greater assistance in dealing with the pressure it faces from high migration flows, as President Nicos Anastasiades met key players on Friday with further discussions set for Monday.

Anastasiades on Friday attended a round table discussion in Brussels during the EU-African Union summit, in which he again blamed Turkey for allowing traffickers to exploit Africans.

“[The] majority of asylum-applicants in Cyprus have passed to the Govt-controlled areas from the occupied part after having arrived from Turkey,” he said on Twitter, adding that this is an instance of exploitation of Africans by traffickers who are allowed to operate freely by Turkish authorities.

The EU should be able to provide aid where it is mostly needed and assist African capacity building with a view to enhancing effective border management and the ability to fight traffickers, he said.

In 2021 majority of asylum-applicants in Cyprus have passed to the Gov-controlled areas from the occupied part after having arrived from Turkey. This is an instance of exploitation of Africans by traffickers who are allowed to operate freely by the Turkish authorities.

— Nicos Anastasiades (@AnastasiadesCY) February 18, 2022

The Republic is bound by agreements with the UN to assist those who seek protection, many of whom are in recent years people from African countries who fly to Turkey and make their way to the north, eventually crossing the Green Line into the government-controlled areas.

The government is hoping to procure agreements with countries from which migrants arrive so that they can effectively be returned.

Anastasiades has taken a central role in seeking assistance from the EU – which has recently promised more funding, along with hopes that agencies such as Frontex can assist Cyprus in returning failed applicants to their countries.

Elsewhere, he is set to meet on Monday with European Commissioner for Promoting the European Way of Life Margaritis Schinas.

Migration is again set to feature prominently amongst their discussions.

Director of the president’s press office Andreas Iosif said in a written statement that Anastasiades will discuss the migration crisis with Commissioner Schinas in light of the influxes on the island and the challenges Cyprus is faced with.

The issue is of utmost priority for the government as Cyprus has the highest number of migrants in the EU, in population ratio, he added.

Iosif said Anastasiades will inform the Commissioner that a high percentage οf asylum seekers arrive to Cyprus via Turkey and that Ankara systematically pushes migrants to the island via the Turkish-occupied areas.

Anastasiades will underline that the EU-Cyprus cooperation needs to be reviewed, with a more engaging role on the part of the EU, he added.

Schinas will be in Cyprus from February 19 to 22 where he will meet Anastasiades, House president Anita Demetriou, the ministers of interior, health, justice and education. He will also tour the green line and EU-financed projects.  His visit also includes talks with religious leaders and a lecture at the University of Cyprus.

Interior Minister Nicos Nouris earlier this week met with Frontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri, with the two discussions ways to manage inflows through the Green Line and increasing returns.

“In the first month of 2022, there were 850 detections [in Cyprus], 48 per cent higher than last year,” the report said about Cyprus, adding that the most represented nationalities were nationals of Congo (Kinshasa), Syria and Nigeria,” the latest Frontex report detailed.