ASYLUM seekers are being left to sleep in parks and mosques, because of a chronic shortage of facilities on the island.
While families are offered housing at the Asylum Seekers Reception Centre in Kofinou, single men are being turned away and as a result are sleeping rough, according to the president of immigrant support group KISA.
The statement was also backed by UNHCR representative in Cyprus Olga Komiti, who reported that single men in Cyprus who arrive as asylum seekers must often resort to sleeping in courtyards. Komiti called on authorities to ensure that asylum seekers are provided with housing as required by EU law.
In a meeting earlier this week, the Interior House Committee announced plans to establish a general law that implements Council Directive 2003/9/EC, which lays down minimum standards on the reception of asylum seekers “to ensure them a dignified standard of living and comparable living conditions in all Member States”.
According to the President of KISA (Movement for Equality, Support and Anti-Racism), Doros Polycarpou, the government is facing potential fines from the EU for not implementing the law and is now moving quickly to pass a national law that lays down specific policies dealing with asylum seekers.
“We were supposed to have a national law [on receiving asylum seekers] last February but we didn’t manage it, so it is being discussed now in October to be implemented,” Polycarpou told the Cyprus Mail yesterday. “The Directive describes the conditions that have to be satisfied, but there has to be a creation of a national law to implement those conditions.”
Polycarpou said that housing and employment for asylum seekers are two of the most important issues that the national law will address.
“The law says that every asylum seekers will be provided with housing,” he said. “But they have changed their laws and the Reception Centre in Kofinou is no longer accepting families. So when single men arrive, for example, there is no service that provides them housing.”
Polycarpou said there were two ways the government could satisfy its legal requirements and ensure housing for asylum seekers: by giving them a place to stay for free or by covering the rent.
“Right now the government offers part of rent, and that is only if you get welfare,” he said. “For one person, the amount given is £90 per month for rent. But we know that even in the old city rent costs £160 to £200 per month for a room.
“Therefore, many people don’t have the opportunity to rent houses. So they stay either in the park or in a mosque. Or you have families of five sleeping in one room, the parents sleeping with the kids. This can’t happen.”
Polycarpou referred to current housing conditions for asylum seekers as illegal but believed that the government would soon have to fulfil its obligations lest it faced lawsuits.
Some have been critical of suggestions that the government should cover the rent of asylum seekers, pointing out that the government does not pay rent for its own citizens and so it should not privilege asylum seekers over Cypriots.
But Polycarpou noted that there is no directive stating that the government has an obligation to house Cypriots. “If there was such a directive, then okay, we’d say they should be handled in the same way. But there is no such directive.”
KISA has been meeting with the Interior House Committee to offer suggestions on the new national asylum seeker law. One of the suggestions of the immigrant support group is that the government offer financial assistance to asylum seekers for the first three months, which is the most difficult period, and then offer them employment opportunities.
With present policies, the government can wait up to a year before offering employment to asylum seekers.
KISA recommended that the government also initiate a training and educational programme to assist asylum seekers during the first three months.
Polycarpou said that it was important to offer asylum seekers work because it was “psychologically destructive” for them to be passive and jobless, and because they could contribute to the society by being productive.
“We will be happy, considering the present tragic situation, if even the minimum requirements by the EU are made into a reality.”
