By Anthony O. Miller
FOUR of the 10 boat people on hunger-strike at the Pefkos Hotel have ended their fast, the rest are expected to soon, and three of 24 boat people living there were briefly hospitalised this week after drinking shampoo, Pefkos sources said yesterday.
The four quit the fast – which they began on Tuesday to protest their continued detention there – after Sharon Bernard, Head of Liaison in Cyprus for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), talked with them this week, sources said.
The three who drank shampoo did so because “they wanted do something to get the government to get our freedom,” Nihad Hage, one of the Pefkos immigrants told the Cyprus Mail. “Maybe they will give us a date for our freedom,” he added.
Hage said he would try – as he promised Bernard – to get the remaining six hunger-strikers to end their fast. She, in turn, pledged to visit them on Monday.
It was Hage who faxed a letter, signed by the 10 hunger-strikers, to the Ministries of Justice and Interior and to the news media last week, urging they be given their freedom, and protesting at living under police guard since last June.
The three shampoo-drinkers were briefly taken to Limassol General Hospital, treated and released at about 9pm on Thursday night, Pefkos owner/manager Neophytos Efstathiou said.
He said the incident was not any attempt at suicide, but rather a bid to call attention to their plight.
The 24 have been under virtual house arrest at the Pefkos since last June. They were among 113 boat people rescued, sick and starving, from an overcrowded Syrian trawler off the Cyprus coast.
The 24 have all had their applications for refugee status screened and rejected by UNHCR officers from Geneva, Bernard said. But as they are appealing the rejections, she said she was sending their appeals to Geneva for urgent review.
UNHCR officials in Geneva phoned Bernard yesterday to inquire about the wellbeing of ‘The Pefkos 24’, following their receipt of newspaper accounts of the hunger strike begun last Tuesday by 10 of the 24 illegal immigrants living there.
Most of the original 113 immigrants were denied refugee status and have since been deported, though it not clear exactly how many still remain scattered at various detention locations throughout the island.
In December, 23 of the Pefkos residents – 10 Bangladeshis and 13 Kurds – were granted refugee status by the government on UNHCR recommendation.
