Israelis deport cult members to Cyprus amid millennium fears

TWENTY-SIX members of a Christian cult were last night on a boat heading for Cyprus after being turned away from Israel.

Reuters quoted an Israeli police spokeswoman as saying the 16 Irish and 10 Romanian members of “an extreme Christian cult” would sail by ferry to Cyprus after being denied entry on Sunday.

The spokeswoman said the group had tried to enter through Haifa port despite being refused Israeli visas on two separate occasions. She did not say on what grounds they had been denied visas. The group includes children, some of them mentally handicapped.

Israeli authorities fear a small number of the millions of Christian pilgrims expected to deluge the Holy Land for the millennium will be zealots eager to witness first hand what they believe will be an apocalyptic war foretold in the scriptures.

An Israeli shipping official said the group, which had been confined on the ferry since it arrived, had $300,000 in cash in four cars, but he described the group as shabbily dressed.

AP reported that the group had travelled across Europe by bus before getting a boat to Cyprus on Sunday and then sailing on to Israel.

The Irish ambassador to Israel, Brendan Scannel, said he had “expressed concern” about the episode. The Department of Foreign affairs in Dublin said it was aware that members of the Pilgrim House Foundation, based in Inch, Country Wexford, had attempted to enter Israel without visas. Department officials described the group as well-meaning and said they did not consider them a security risk.

Fourteen members of the Denver-based Concerned Christians group, which believes that acts of extreme violence on the streets of Jerusalem will trigger the cataclysmic End of Days and the second coming of Jesus, were deported from Israel in January.

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.