The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) will deploy up to 2,000 personnel to Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Malta in 2020 to support national authorities with asylum and reception. While support to Greece will double compared to 2019, support to Italy will be decreased as the country faces less workload within first instance asylum procedures.
Eurostat said the EU has experienced a 12% increase in first asylum requests in the third quarter of 2019 - compared to numbers from the previous quarter. For the first time, asylum seekers from Venezuela are in the top three of nationalities submitting asylum requests.
Cyprus will harden its border with the Turkish-controlled northern part of the island known as the Green Line. The move is intended to stop people from crossing into the south to claim asylum there.
The migrants were travelling in an overcrowded boat. They were towed ashore Monday. According to Cyprus police, most of them were from Syria. Two Syrian men suspected of people smuggling were arrested.
Amnesty International reported at the weekend that Ahmed H., a Syrian man who spent four years in Hungarian prisons after being “unjustly convicted” of terrorism charges, has finally been allowed to return to his wife and family in Cyprus.
Cyprus desperately needs the EU's assistance to deal with the influx of migrants. Those already there are facing atrocious conditions while they wait for their applications to be processed.
Cyprus has submitted a request for EU member states to take over 5,000 migrants and refugees, as the number of people seeking asylum and protection is quickly rising in the island nation. It has also criticized Turkey in particular for not taking appropriate action.
Cyprus, a peaceful island in the middle of an unstable region and split by a demarcation line not recognized as a border, is seeing rising numbers of migrants entering the island to gain access to the Greek-speaking southern part of the island which is an EU member state. The island’s proximity to Turkey and Lebanon is leading smugglers to offer risky crossings to Syrians.
This is the story of Ahmed H., a Syrian man living in Cyprus since 2006 and married to a Cypriot national. He has two Cypriot-national daughters. Since 2015 he has been detained in Hungary. Now Amnesty International is trying to convince the Cypriot authorities to allow Ahmed to return home.
It only took a few clicks to overturn Maria Mapporidou's life. Shocked by the case of a serial killer who targeted foreign female domestic workers, she decided to organize a small demonstration in Nicosia, the Cypriot capital, via social media. Her appeal was answered by thousands of people, sparking a national debate that had political repercussions.
In an unprecedented serial killing case that has shocked the Mediterranean island, a Greek Cypriot army captain who murdered five migrant women and two girls was handed seven life sentences. Accusations of rampant racism and police negligence had led to the dismissal of the police chief and the resignation of the justice minister.
In the past few months, smugglers seem to have established a new clandestine route to bring African migrants to Europe. An increasing number of Cameroonians now find themselves 'trapped' in Cyprus after being sold a 'smuggle package' to Italy. Although Syrians still top the list of asylum seekers in Cyprus, Cameroonians are quickly catching up, and a growing number of other Africans are joining them. InfoMigrants went to Nicosia to investigate.