A GROUP of 12 asylum seekers, including two children, yesterday threatened to take action over what they said was the Sovereign Base Area’s (SBA) unacceptable delay in sorting out their political refugee status with the Cyprus government.
“We were told on January 14 that the paperwork would take one week. Then we were told there were elections and that we had to wait till they were over before the paperwork was transferred to Nicosia. It has been two months and still they have done nothing,” Nabil Wahad Naji, 35, said.
The Iraqi is one of eight men who arrived in the SBA in 2001 from the north.
Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), they were given eviction orders from Dhekelia’s Richmond village last December, prompting a six-day protest on top of a tower in Episkopi in January.
The MoU is between the Republic and SBA and clarifies who would be responsible for migrants and asylum applications in the future. The MoU effectively passed on responsibility for any migrants landing in the SBA to the Republic, while some arrangements were made for financial remuneration to the Republic in such circumstances. Although it applies from 2005 onwards, the eight were asked to leave the SBA.
Naji said he and six other Iraqis and an Iranian man currently lived in Larnaca. Some of the men are married and have children. Their wives and offspring are not recognised by the SBA or Cyprus government because the marriages took place in the occupied areas after the group arrived on the island.
“I go nearly every day to ask what is going on and they said they don’t know and to come back tomorrow,” Naji said.
He said the group had been living in Larnaca since their eviction but that without the necessary refugee status they could not work and so had to rely on financial handouts from friends.
“I get money from friends. That is how I live,” he said.
The 35-year-old said he and the other asylum seekers were still waiting for the completion of the necessary paperwork.
“They said they will send the paperwork to Nicosia. We want political refugee status. We don’t know what they are going to say. We are still waiting,” he said.
Asked to comment on the accusations, SBA spokesman Dennis Barnes said: “The ball is in the court of the asylum seekers and when they left the tower we were left to understand that they were going to contact the Republic as agreed.”
Naji effectively denied this and said they had been told the SBA still had paperwork to complete.
“We are waiting. It is more than two months now. We will go to Dhekelia police station tomorrow [today] and we will speak about the case. We might demonstrate again. We need to know what is going on,” the Iraqi said.
