Asylum-seekers stuck in Cyprus’ cramped camp want out | World
A migrant wearing a face mask stands behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Cyprus’ Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said this week that the east Mediterranean island nation whose closest point to Syria is around 150 kilometers (93 miles) remains first among all other European Union member states with the most asylum applications relative to its population. Last year, the country of around 1.1 million people racked up 7,000 asylum applications – most of them from Syrians
Migrants stand behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Cyprus’ Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said this week that the east Mediterranean island nation whose closest point to Syria is around 150 kilometers (93 miles) remains first among all other European Union member states with the most asylum applications relative to its population. Last year, the country of around 1.1 million people racked up 7,000 asylum applications – most of them from Syrians.
A migrant use his cell phone as he walks inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Cyprus’ Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said this week that the east Mediterranean island nation whose closest point to Syria is around 150 kilometers (93 miles) remains first among all other European Union member states with the most asylum applications relative to its population. Last year, the country of around 1.1 million people racked up 7,000 asylum applications – most of them from Syrians.
A migrant wearing a face mask stands behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Cyprus’ Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said this week that the east Mediterranean island nation whose closest point to Syria is around 150 kilometers (93 miles) remains first among all other European Union member states with the most asylum applications relative to its population. Last year, the country of around 1.1 million people racked up 7,000 asylum applications – most of them from Syrians.
A walks inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Cyprus’ Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said this week that the east Mediterranean island nation whose closest point to Syria is around 150 kilometers (93 miles) remains first among all other European Union member states with the most asylum applications relative to its population. Last year, the country of around 1.1 million people racked up 7,000 asylum applications – most of them from Syrians.
A migrant wearing a face mask stands behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Cyprus’ Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said this week that the east Mediterranean island nation whose closest point to Syria is around 150 kilometers (93 miles) remains first among all other European Union member states with the most asylum applications relative to its population. Last year, the country of around 1.1 million people racked up 7,000 asylum applications – most of them from Syrians.
Barbed-wires surrounded a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Cyprus’ Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said this week that the east Mediterranean island nation whose closest point to Syria is around 150 kilometers (93 miles) remains first among all other European Union member states with the most asylum applications relative to its population. Last year, the country of around 1.1 million people racked up 7,000 asylum applications – most of them from Syrians.
Migrants stand behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Cyprus’ Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said this week that the east Mediterranean island nation whose closest point to Syria is around 150 kilometers (93 miles) remains first among all other European Union member states with the most asylum applications relative to its population. Last year, the country of around 1.1 million people racked up 7,000 asylum applications – most of them from Syrians.
Emanuel Conteh migrant from Sierra Leone wearing a face mask stands behind a fence inside a refugee camp in Kokkinotrimithia outside of capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021. Cyprus’ Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said this week that the east Mediterranean island nation whose closest point to Syria is around 150 kilometers (93 miles) remains first among all other European Union member states with the most asylum applications relative to its population. Last year, the country of around 1.1 million people racked up 7,000 asylum applications – most of them from Syrians.
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Emmanuel Conteh negotiates the muddy, rutted pathways in shorts and torn plastic flip-flops and says he can’t sleep in his heavy canvas tent at night because of the cold.
He laments the “hellish” conditions in ethnically divided Cyprus’ cramped Pournara migrant reception camp, where he’s been living for the past two months after flying to the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and then clandestinely crossing into the internationally recognized south.
He says he fled his native Sierra Leone because he was persecuted for refusing to follow in his father’s footsteps and practice a kind of witchcraft.
“The head of this society, they want to train me, but I refused,” said Conteh.
He wants Cypriot authorities to swiftly process his asylum application and let him and others out of the razor-wire-encircled former military camp near the industrial western fringes of the capital Nicosia that he says feels like prison.
“We’re not prisoners. We’re asylum-seekers. Let them finish our process and then (free) us,” Conteh said. “That’s all we’re asking.”
The small eastern Mediterranean island republic is trying to cope with a huge backlog of asylum applications and despite government efforts to expedite the process, migrants say they feel literally left out in the cold.