THE police and the Sovereign Base Area (SBA) authorities will today discuss the fate of 15 illegal immigrants found hiding in a dry reservoir bed at Achna within the British Bases.
The Foreign Ministry and British High Commission continued negotiations late into the night over who should deal with the immigrants and how they had reached Achna. The illegals were eventually given shelter for the night by the Bases pending a final decision.
Speaking after the initial discussion, High Commission spokesman Jonathan Allan said, “We are taking them in for the night and we have asked the SBA Police and the Cyprus Police to get together tomorrow and produce a full report on who these people are and where they have come from so as to determine what the next step should be.”
The illegals, believed to be of Iraqi origin, said they had arrived on Monday but had not realised they were in Cyprus. They said they had each paid £1,000 for the journey and were seeking political asylum in Europe.
If it is determined that the immigrants landed on Cypriot and not SBA territory, the government would have to handle claims for political asylum.
Police chanced upon the immigrants only when they arrested two Iraqis who arrived on the same boat and were spotted wondering around Xylotembou, a village near the Achna reservoir in Famagusta district.
Famagusta police said the two men had been taken to police holding cells and are expected to be remanded on suspicion of entering Cyprus illegally sometime today.
Captain Rupert Greenwood of the British Bases said: “The High Commissioner is speaking to the Foreign Ministry to ascertain where they (the illegals) landed. If it is established that they landed in the Republic of Cyprus, then it is hoped that Cyprus police will take the jurisdiction.if they landed on Dhekelia beach on the southern Bases area, then of course we will deal with the matter.”
Captain Greenwood added that SBA laws were very similar to Cyprus laws on illegal immigrants.
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.
