Police seize record number of fireworks, three injuries reported

Police identified and seized approximately 415,000 pyrotechnic devices since the beginning of the year, of which 413,000 were firecrackers, police announced on Monday.

This is the largest amount seized in the last ten years, the announcement said. Since the beginning of April, police confiscated 43 Molotov cocktails, 104 gas canisters and other improvised explosive devices in Nicosia, Limassol and Paphos.

A total of 28 persons were charged in connection with investigated cases.

Controls intensified during the week leading up to Easter with more than 100 officers working through the night on Saturday.

Three minor firecracker injuries were reported, following the weekend’s festivities, police said.

One involved a 56-year-old man who was injured on the shoulder at a Limassol church parking lot on Saturday night when teens set off flares. The 56-year-old went to the Limassol general hospital, where he was determined to have suffered a burn to his left shoulder and a ruptured eardrum.

On Sunday night, a police officer in Larnaca was slightly injured after responding to a complaint of firecrackers and flares being thrown. The officer sustained a bruise to the left shoulder and a throat burn and received first aid at Larnaca general hospital.

In Larnaca in the early hours of Monday, a nine-year-old boy sustained a superficial eye-injury from a firecracker in a church courtyard, where he was with his mother. The nine-year-old was taken to Larnaca general hospital, where he was examined and discharged.