Cyprus's 'State of Emergency': Turkey's 'Weaponization' of Illegal Mass Migration
by Uzay Bulut • October 5, 2022 at 5:00 am
The Cypriot government says that Turkey is orchestrating this illegal immigration crisis, as most migrants coming to Cyprus travel from Turkey. They reportedly fly from Istanbul or Ankara to the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus, are then smuggled to the free, southern part of the Republic of Cyprus, and from there, under EU law, can apply for asylum.
On September 11 of this year, the EU recognized the instrumentalization or "weaponization" of migration by Turkey....
In 1974, Turkey invaded the Republic of Cyprus and forcibly displaced the indigenous Greek Cypriots from the north in a violent ethnic cleansing campaign, accompanied by murders, rapes, forced disappearances and other atrocities.
Since then, Turkey has implemented policies meant to erase the Hellenic identity and civilization of occupied northern Cyprus.
More financial support or migrant housing centers are not the solution to the illegal immigration crisis in Cyprus. The unending number of illegal migrants are apparently intended to outnumber and replace the indigenous Cypriots. Cyprus suffers from both illegal Turkish occupation and the mass illegal migration.
"This year... We had 4,250 births so far, as opposed to 12,000 migrant arrivals. This is not happening anywhere else in the European Union." — Costas Constantinou, director general of Cypriot Interior Ministry, Cyprus Mail, July 5, 2022.
What the Republic of Cyprus appears to need is an end to the illegal Turkish military occupation and an end to the EU's appeasement of Turkey.
"Turkey, which illegally occupies one third of our country, is exploiting immigration to change the demography of the island for political purposes.... Many argue that the time has come when the Cypriot government should follow the example of Denmark, Poland, Greece or Hungary to stop this ongoing nightmare." — Savvas Iacovides, veteran Cypriot journalist, to Gatestone, September 2022.
The Republic of Cyprus, 36% of which is illegally occupied by Turkey, is increasingly struggling with a massive wave of illegal migration from Turkey, the Middle East and Africa.
Cyprus now has the highest number of asylum applications per capita of any EU country. Nearly 5% of the island population, according to the country's officials, is now made up of asylum seekers.
The Cypriot government says that Turkey is orchestrating this illegal immigration crisis, as most migrants coming to Cyprus travel from Turkey. They reportedly fly from Istanbul or Ankara to the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus, are then smuggled to the free, southern part of the Republic of Cyprus, and from there, under EU law, can apply for asylum.
Since 2018, Cyprus has experienced a large increase in the number of people illegally arriving in the country and then applying for asylum.
