A GROUP of beleaguered ethnic Kurdish asylum seekers from Iraq were facing a new crisis last night, with the threat of being turned out of their hotel after the government ceased to pay for their rooms.
According to Doros Polycarpou, president of the immigrant support group KISA the eight men were part of the group of asylum seekers who went on hunger strike at Eleftheria Square in May, and who later demonstrated at the Red Cross after two weeks of protest achieved nothing.
After the Red Cross incident the asylum seekers were promised their demands for the right to work without limitations, government housing, access to benefits where the right to work is refused, medical and pharmaceutical care, an end to police mistreatment, an end to deportations to countries which persecute them, and genuine examinations by an independent body of each asylum application.
The problems were supposed to have been dealt with within a week.
Polycaropu said yesterday that the men were given shelter at a Nicosia hotel but some had been given welfare cheques only on Thursday, and the remainder yesterday, a month and a half later than promised.
However they were then told that their hotel would no longer be paid for as they had gotten their cheques, which only amounted to £170 each and they had to move out immediately even though they had nowhere to go.
But those who got their cheques only yesterday were being asked to pay by the manager, who understandably wanted his money and was worried about who was going to pay his bill, Polycarpou said.
He said four of the men had found a place that was going to cost them £100 a month each plus a deposit of £100. But the four remaining at the hotel still had nowhere to go by last night.
Polycarpou said he had contacted the Interior Ministry. “The response is that they will not take any more responsibility for them,” he said.
“We’ve asked if it’s possible for them to be given another few days. The Interior Ministry has been paying their hotel for one and a half months and now for the sake of a few days, they won’t give them a chance to find somewhere else to live.”
Polycarpou said he did not know how the situation was going to play out last night and today. “All I know now is that they are in their room. The police came and left. It’s a bad situation. I don’t know what they plan to do.”
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