Game wardens under attack

ARSONISTS yesterday targeted the car of a Larnaca game warden in the second such incident this week.

The target this time was Andreas Tyrimou whose car had been doused with petrol and set on fire while it was parked outside his home in Droshia, Larnaca.

A neighbour who noticed the fire managed to hose it down before it spread. Police found a container with petrol on the scene.

Tyrimou suspects the attack is linked to his work.

“Poaching has intensified during this period because it is the season of ambelopoulia (blackcaps),” Tyrimou said.

Despite it being illegal, thousands of songbirds are trapped in Cyprus every year and sold through restaurants as ‘delicacies’ fetching huge profits to trappers.

It is the second such attack in less than a week.

On Tuesday, a Limassol court remanded a 30-year-old Limassol man in custody in connection with an arson attack on another game warden’s car. The game warden had caught the man hunting illegally.

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.