THE GOVERNMENT is being forced to change the planned location for a detention centre to house the influx of Turkish Cypriot gypsies after a backlash from local residents.
On Tuesday, the government said it would set up an emergency detention centre at a secret location outside Nicosia, but it was revealed yesterday that the centre would be set up at Kotsiatis, near the capital’s main landfill.
Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou admitted yesterday the government had backed down after protests from local residents. He said a new location would be found by next Monday.
In the meantime, he said, the gypsies would be housed at different places, but under police watch until their identities were established.
Since the beginning of March, 137 Turkish Cypriot gypsies have crossed to the south. In the past week alone, 87 entered the free areas. Most have been relocated to Paphos, but many are still living in tents.
Labour Minister Andreas Moushiouttas said yesterday he could not rule out that the gypsies had come to claim state benefits and might return to the occupied areas.
“This has happened in the past,” he said. “A year or two ago, a wave similar to this arrived. They stayed in the free areas for a while and then they left.”
Moushiouttas said that the government had at the time put the gypsies up in hotels, then housed them in Turkish Cypriot properties and tried to find them work.
“Unfortunately, our previous experience shows they are unwilling to work,” he said.
The gypsies say they are escaping from the economic woes besetting the breakaway Turkish Cypriot regime in the north.
Moushiouttas said there was a definite motivation for the gypsies to cross, when the standard of living on both sides was compared.
He said yesterday welfare had given the heads of each family £150 plus £50 for each dependent over the age of 14. There were also some additional benefits, he said, adding that for a family of four the average they would receive would be around £375. “These amounts would allow a family to live with dignity,” he said.
The amounts stated by Moushouttas would be worth some 700 million Turkish lira. A source familiar with the standard of living in the north said that although the money would not be worth much more there than in the south, gypsy families could make it go a lot further.
Diplomatic sources said there had been little reaction in the north to the exodus of the gypsies and that the press was not particularly interested. “It seems to be a situation where no one cares,” they said.
A Turkish Cypriot journalist told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that little had been reported on the issue. He said the ‘foreign ministry’ was waiting for reports from the UN and was doing little to halt the flow to the south.
He said gypsies were not listed as a separate community in the north and were included in the general population census as ‘TRNC’ citizens. No estimates were available, but a figure of 1,000 gypsies in the north has been reported.
The journalist said most of the gypsies lived in the Morphou area and were of mixed descent, including both indigenous and mainland Turkish gypsies. “They don’t bother anyone and most Turkish Cypriots are indifferent to them,” he said. “They mostly work in manual labour or sell oranges from the back of trucks.”
UNFICYP spokesman Charles Gaulkin said yesterday the UN had not been informed by the government about the new detention centre. UNFICYP personnel are mandated to visit Turkish Cypriots living in the south around twice a month, “to hear their complaints and see if there is anything they need,” he said.
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.
