The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) issued an announcement alleging that the Cypriot authorities had pushed back three boats carrying some 80 Syrian nationals, including women and children, who had reached Cyprus from Syria.

“These boats were reportedly pushed back by Cypriot authorities, as a result of which the Syrian nationals were forcibly returned to Syria, from where they had fled,” said a UNHCR statement which pointed out that “such measures are incompatible with states’ non-refoulement obligations and are contrary to international law.”

The announcement was issued after the capsizing of a boat carrying 21 people, some 30 nautical miles off the Cape Greco coast. Two people were rescued from the sea, while seven bodies were also recovered. It was another tragedy involving migrants – of the type we see much too frequently – that we will carry on seeing as long as there are people seeking a better life.

Not all are fleeing persecution and war zones to be entitled to international protection as the UNHCR seems to suggest. The situation in Syria, may have deteriorated after a brief period of stability, but does this mean that the Cyprus coastguard must be escorting every boat with Syrians spotted in its territorial waters to the island and handing them forms to apply for asylum?

Cyprus, like many other countries in the Mediterranean has decided to limit the influx of migrants and, like other countries, may have been resorting to pushbacks, which the UNHCR said “are incompatible with states’ non-refoulement obligations and are contrary to international law”. Law enforcement operations “must not result in situations that violate the prohibition of refoulement”, it added in its didactic announcement directed at the Cypriot authorities.

There was no proof that refoulement had taken place, which is why the UNHCR used the adverb ‘reportedly’ to describe the pushbacks. Where was it getting its information from, considering it does not have boats patrolling the Mediterranean Sea? Had it received a complaint, and if it had, who had submitted it? Was it one of the people traffickers who run these operations taking large amounts of money from desperate individuals to provide travel in unsafe boats?

Giving protection to people fleeing a war zone or persecution by a repressive regime is the right thing to do. But international law, which obliges a country (primarily EU member states) to examine every application for international protection submitted to it, has been abused to such an extent by Third World nationals that most countries are reluctant to comply with the law. These countries are also under a lot of pressure from their own populations to stop the influx of migrants. The failure of governments to do so has contributed to the rise of far-right parties in many countries.

The UNHCR is not concerned about the consequences of migration on societies, because its only interest is facilitating migration.