Justice Minister Marios Hartsiotis on Friday evening rushed to clarify statements he had made earlier in the day about the wildfire in the Limassol which killed two this week, saying they were “in no way intended to diminish the value of human life”.

“The loss of our two fellow people was undoubtedly a tragic event. Both the death of our fellow people, as well as the destruction left behind by the fire, which was unprecedented in scope and in intensity, shocked us all, and no words or expressions can express the magnitude of our pain,” he said.

He offered his “sincere condolences” to the family of the two who died, and the government’s “support” to those whose property was destroyed by the fire.

“My statement was in no way intended to diminish the value of human life, the safeguarding of which – as I have repeatedly stated from the first moment of the fire – was the government’s priority,” he said.

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He added that his statement had “reasonably caused negative associations and the subsequent criticism”.

The statements which caused controversy had been made earlier on Friday afternoon, when he told journalists that “we had absolutely no loss of life” in the wildfire, except for the two people who did die.

“Indeed, some failures, difficulties, and problems may occur, but we must also emphasise the positive aspects of this operation, which is why I publicly express my gratitude that, first of all, apart from the unfortunate incident of our two fellow human beings, while 16 whole villages were evacuated, we had absolutely no loss of life,” he said.

Asked at the time what “weaknesses” existed in Cyprus’ response to the fire, he said he was “getting straight to the point”.

“One such weakness that I identified, because I was constantly there, was a weakness in evacuation. Although, as a result, we still get top marks on this. Yes, to get these top marks, we went through many incidents and dangers, which in other similar cases should not create an obstacle to evacuation,” he said.