Hunters harass UN peacekeepers

By Charlie Charalambous

CYPRIOT hunters who encroach on the buffer zone are treating UN peacekeepers as big game.

The UN has observed an increase in the number of rifle-wielding hunters who ignore the ceasefire line in search of hares and partridges.

“In the last two weeks warning shots have been deliberately fired over the heads of UN personnel when hunters were asked to leave the buffer zone,” UN spokesman Waldemar Rokoszewski told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.

The situation has become so serious that reports have been filed to New York and representations made to the government over trigger-happy hunters.

“This is a matter of some concern and raised many times by the secretary- general in his report to the Security Council,” said Rokoszewski.

He recounted one incident where an Austrian soldier had his glasses smashed by pellets fired from a hunter’s rifle. “The job of peacekeepers is not to chase after hunters.”

Rokoszewski said that every season over-eager Cypriots encroached on the buffer zone with the aid of official maps indicating where hunting is permitted.

“Unfortunately the designated (hunting) areas issued by the authorities encroach on the buffer zone, even though the buffer-zone areas are well known.”

Although the government has been made aware of the problem, it is unlikely to upset the powerful hunting lobby so close to an election.

It seems that for the immediate future UN soldiers will have to duck pot- shots from the legions of camouflaged enthusiasts.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.