A kind A few months after Grace Ngo flew from her hometown of Cameroon to Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus, she decided to “go west”. The smugglers pointed the students at the Venetian walls through the center of Nicosia in Europe. Last divided capital.
Before midnight on May 24,Ngo leaped from the separated Turkish Cypriot Republic into the internationally recognized southern part of Greece where she hoped to become this war-divided island.
“I just said’God bless me,'” the 24-year-old girl recalled, describing the jump that landed her on the UN patrol buffer zone, where she has been trapped ever since. “The wall is too high. I hurt my leg badly, but I feel desperate for the West.”
Daniel Djibrilla and Emil Etoundi, two other asylum-seekers from Cameroon’s English-speaking minority, were also in the same location that night and were also attracted by the bright lights of distant European metropolises. Like Ngo, she said that if she were not a victim of abuse, she would not embark on the journey, and both cited the civil war in Cameroon as a reason for leaving their homes.
“We jumped off over there,” said former soldier Etoundi, pointing to the ceasefire line that has since separated this ethnically divided island. Turkey Invaded in 1974 after a coup to unite Cyprus and Greece. “We don’t know this is no man’s land. I can’t believe it.”
After President Nicos Anastasiadis’s government refused to allow them to apply for asylum, the three Cameroonians were still trapped in the buffer zone and protected by the UNHCR, but lived in tents and left others alone. At the mercy of kindness.
At height Syrian refugee crisis in 2015Cyprus is still relatively unvisited by displaced persons, as most people pass through Turkey and Aegean islands on their way to Europe.
that Change in 2018, When smugglers began to regard the easternmost country of the European Union as an easy place to get off.
On May 21, the Anastasiades government declared a state of emergency. Officials stated that the Mediterranean island is facing continuous and insurmountable pressure.After it came Cyprus is condemned Accused by human rights watchdogs of illegally preventing maritime immigrants.
According to the Greek Cypriot authorities, by the end of 2020, there were nearly 20,000 asylum applications pending. In 2019, a record 13,648 people applied for protection. In the first six months of 2021, more than 5,000 applications have been submitted, accounting for more than half of the total in 2020.
According to data from Eurostat, the statistical agency Eurostat, Cyprus has the highest number of first-time asylum seekers per capita in the European Union.
“We are in a critical situation,” Interior Minister Nicos Nouris told the Guardian before the EU summit in Slovenia on Thursday. “all [reception] The center is full, and we simply do not have the ability to receive more. If we want to talk about unity and responsibility, we must stand on the side of front-line member states like Cyprus, which is the country that receives the most asylum seekers. “
According to Nuris, most migrants entering southern Greece are smuggled illegally through areas beyond the control of Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus.
Nouris said that because smuggling networks use zoning, people are really worried about opening up a new front on an island where immigrants arrive by boat and arrive along the entire 110-mile (180-kilometer) ceasefire line.
“We must be very careful not to open new channels,” he said. “It’s not a question of three people-if so many people come, it would be ridiculous. But if I accept these three people, then [such crossings] Will be the next common practice. Thousands of people will come…Turkey will load them on the bus and send them to the checkpoint. “
The plight of Cameroonians illustrates the government’s hardline stance, just like Greece’s. Europe About migration.
“They have the right to review their asylum applications,” UNHCR spokesperson Emilia Strovolidou explained. The three were sent back to no man’s land after approaching the UN patrol and going to the nearest Greek Cypriot checkpoint.
“This is a clear case of people asking for international protection, and we have intervened many times with the competent authorities to allow them to enter the procedure.”
Strovolidou said that Cyprus “is obligated to process asylum applications in accordance with international law, EU and national laws” and to allow people to enjoy dignified conditions in reception centers, adding: “Their living conditions-now, in tents, in the heat Medium-totally inappropriate.”
Asylum seekers have been trapped in the buffer zone before, but have not been trapped for that long. The events of the past two months have led human rights organizations to accuse the government of exaggerating the number of arrivals and create an atmosphere of fear driven by xenophobia and anti-immigration hysteria. The rise of the far-right Elam party.
On an island that relies on low-skilled labor, aid organizations argue that it is usually foreigners who already hold student or work visas in Cyprus applying for asylum in an attempt to legally extend their stay.
Corina Drousiotou of the Cyprus Refugee Council says immigration keeps the agricultural sector alive. “Although the Cyprus economy is heavily dependent on low-skilled foreigners, the vast majority of whom work in poor conditions, with low wages and almost zero rights, there is no political will to properly resolve these issues,” she said.
“Overhaul [asylum] Systems are needed to ensure the dignity and equal rights of all people, which in turn will bring multiple benefits to many industries and local communities. “
For Ngo, Djibrilla and Etoundi, the prospect of any job is welcome. But with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), Cameroonians can only wait anxiously for news under the shade of slender trees planted along the gravel belt.
“I’m 33 years old. I [deserted] Ten years later, the army,” Etoundi said, because Djibrilla played a terrible video on his phone showing the beheadings in the conflict in his country. “I don’t support it. [Cameroonian] Separatists struggled, but I had to leave because I did not agree with what the military asked us to do. If I go back, I will face death. “
The Minister of the Interior of Cyprus said that if the EU agrees to include the island in the redistribution plan, the case may be resolved.
“I have written to the European Commission saying that we are going to transfer them to other member states, but have not received a response,” Nouris said. “If that’s the case, the problem will be easily solved.”
The last names of Grace, Emile and Daniel have been changed
