‘Cyprus doesn’t need more thanks and gratitude. It needs practical and direct support’
THE EUROPEAN Union yesterday told Cyprus to be prepared for a worsening humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, despite fewer evacuees fleeing to the island to escape the war.
Around 30,000 of the 40,000 foreign national evacuees from war-torn Lebanon have left the island and the authorities are now handling between 1,000 and 2,000 people a day, down from a peak of 10,000 per day late last week, they said yesterday.
But Stavros Dimas the EU Environment Commissioner, who arrived on the island yesterday for a three-hour visit, warned that things could get worse as the government pleaded with its European partners for help in speeding up the transfer of evacuees from the boats to flights back to their home countries.
Government spokesman Christodoulos Pashardis said the island had not only reached its limits but had exceeded them.
The authorities are worried about a possible influx of third country nationals and were also bracing themselves for becoming a hub for humanitarian aid to some 800,000 Lebanese citizens who have been displaced within their own country after 15 days of relentless bombing by Israel.
“We should be prepared for scenarios which are not what we hope the situation will be,” Dimas told Reuters in an interview. “It’s better to be prepared for not only having humanitarian assistance ready, but also aircraft and other ways of transferring people.”
Touring the Larnaca facilities for evacuees, Dimas said the repatriation of nationals coming from developing countries would be handled jointly with Cyprus, and the EU and the UN would fund this accordingly. There are tens of thousands of Filipino, Sri Lankan and other nationals from developing countries working in Lebanon.
In statements at Larnaca Airport on arrival, Dimas said Cyprus was acting as a “bridge of peace and safety” for thousands of people. “We realise the problems that exist and there should be better coordination for the return of citizens, not only of Europeans but also nationals of third countries that may find themselves in Cyprus in the coming days,” Dimas said.
He said there needed to be more aircraft and improved coordination between the arrival of boats and the departure of planes and also of humanitarian missions to Lebanon.
Yesterday several hundred more evacuees arrived on the island through Limassol and Larnaca ports although the numbers were nowhere near what they were last week.
Hundreds of exhausted Australians, Canadians and Americans told of “horrific bombing” as they filed off ships in Larnaca.
Omiros Mavrommatis, the coordinator for the Foreign Ministry’s evacuation programme told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that Cyprus had handled around 40,000 evacuees and that around 30,000 had left the island. Mavrommatis said that it was difficult to determine the exact number that had left as many had paid for their own air tickets off the island on any available flight to their destination.
“We know that we still have around 2,000 Canadians and around 500 Americans,” said Mavrommatis. There are two evacuation flights tomorrow due to fly to Montreal and another to Philadelphia, and also one for Shannon in Ireland, from where American citizens can fly home. Mavrommatis said that 1,500 Indian citizens had also left the island.
“We are now handling around one or two thousand a day compared to 10,000 a day last week,” he said.
Pashardis said the government was already in contact with the EU over the issue of third-country non-EU citizens who could find themselves in Cyprus. He said there should be an equal distribution of responsibilities among partner countries. “Cyprus cannot shoulder this alone,” he added.
“Cyprus has not just reached its limits, it has exceeded them. Cyprus doesn’t need more thanks and gratitude. It needs practical and direct support from all European countries in a common effort to face immediately both the existing and developing humanitarian problem. This problem cannot concern Cyprus exclusively.”
The Spokesman said Cyprus would continue “until its limits are exhausted” to accept refugees and to offer every possible humanitarian assistance, anticipating however assistance promptly and practically and not late and merely verbally.
He said Cyprus has asked for an opening of borders of other European countries in the event refugees from third countries begin to pour in, as well as more planes to Cyprus to promptly transfer foreign nationals to their homelands so that there is no gap between arrivals and departures and the creation of crisis groups at every European country. Pashardis said the concern was not financial.
Foreign Minister George Lillikas said yesterday that following the meeting at Larnaca Port between Demas, EU and Cypriot officials as well as yesterday’s COREPER discussions, ”we expect some specific decisions to be taken.”
”When a country like Cyprus becomes an important hub when a neighbouring country is in a state of war, it is natural that there will be an involvement of many state services,” he said.
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