Our View: Barbed wire fence was never going to stop migrants

The setting up of the barbed wire fence along 11km of ceasefire line from Astomeritis to the old Nicosia airport to curb the flow of irregular migrants was one of the most misguided measures implemented by the Anastasiades government. Instead of stopping the illegal migrants from the north it has made life difficult for locals, restricting their movement and making them feel like they are living in a military zone.

What was the reasoning of the former interior minister Nikos Nouris for coming up with this measure? Would an 11-km fence along a 180-km dividing line stop the arrival of migrants? It is not as if the rest of dividing line is over terrain that people would have any difficulty walking through – it is on a plain that anyone can walk through, any time of the day. And if they could not cross at Akaki or Mammari because of the fence, they would find another part of the dividing line where they could do so.

We can only deduce that the fence was put up for political reasons rather than as a practical way of dealing with migrants. Many concerns were being heard about the arrival of migrants and the government needed to be seen to be doing something about the matter so Nouris came up with the idea of the fence. The government also included an amount for the hiring of some 200 ‘boundary’ guards to patrol the area, in the 2023 state budget. In the end, this policy seems to have been a big waste of the taxpayer’s money.

The current interior minister, Constantinos Ioannou, has hinted at the possibility of removing parts of the fence, although no definite plan has been announced. Representatives of the affected communities said Ioannou had assured them that a solution would be found, although he did not say the barbed wire would be removed. He may also be influenced by the political considerations that placed the fence in the first place. Yet that he is willing to discuss its usefulness is a step in the right direction.

Although the steep fall in asylum applications (735 this June compared to 2,041 in June 2022) would suggest the fence is working, this is not necessarily the case. The authorities appear to have got their act together. As Ioannou said, more migrants were now being repatriated than arriving which suggests the processes for examining applications have been speeded up. This is not a result of the barbed wire fence being put up, but because the authorities have finally got their act together. Perhaps the current government has realised that efficient processes for examining asylum applications is the sensible and most effective way of dealing with the migration problem, not the barbed wire fence.