NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) – More than two dozen migrants were injured during a major fight between citizens of Syria and several African countries in an overcrowded migrant reception camp outside the capital of Cyprus, a government official said on Tuesday. .
Interior Ministry spokesman Loizos Michael told the Associated Press that all 25 suffered minor injuries and have since returned to the field after receiving first aid at Nicosia General Hospital.
He said the windows were shattered, beds and other equipment broken and a section of the camp fence suffered major damage as a result of the seven-hour melee that was suppressed after riot police intervention. Police investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fight, but it is believed that it started with a small number of individuals and grew rapidly.
Michael said that about 1,500 migrants are housed in the camp with a capacity of 1,000, with 600 of them quarantined, according to coronavirus prevention protocols.
A resident of the camp told Cyprus’s Sigma TV network behind the facility’s fence that tensions have increased among migrants from Syria, Nigeria and Sierra Leone because they were not allowed to leave during a month-long national blockade that the government imposed to reduce COVID -19 infections.
Police spokesman Christos Andreou told Sigma TV that the unrest in the countryside never occurred on such a scale.
Ethnically divided Cyprus continues to receive small groups of migrants arriving daily, mainly from Turkey, which is 50 miles (80 kilometers) away at the nearest point. Most enter the island via the separatist Turkish Cypriot north, cross a porous buffer zone controlled by the UN and enter the internationally recognized south to seek asylum.
Cyprus is a member of the European Union, but only the southern Greek Cypriot part enjoys full membership benefits.
Many of the arriving migrants are Syrians. Michael said that a quarter of the 7,000 migrants who applied for asylum last year came from Syria.
The Interior Ministry official said that Cyprus, with a population of approximately 900,000, cannot cope with the steady flow of migrants’ arrivals. He said Turkey is behind an orchestrated campaign “to change the demographic character of Cyprus” by sending migrants to Cyprus.
Michael said that interviews with several migrants indicated that many were “forced” by Turkish authorities to come to Cyprus.
The majority of migrants arriving are single men who are examined by international law enforcement agencies to determine whether they have any connection to extremist groups. Michael said in the most recent count, seven individuals suspected of such connections were being detained in a different and more secure camp.
Cyprus wants the EU to promote a “fairer” redistribution of migrants arriving at the frontline states, enforce an agreement with Turkey to keep migrants within its borders and for the bloc to conclude repatriation agreements with third countries.