Firefighters return from Lebanon

The eight-member crew and two aircraft sent by the forestry department to Lebanon earlier in the week to assist in combating forest fires returned on Friday.

The crew and two aircraft got back to Cyprus at around noon after a meeting with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri.  They were dispatched to Lebanon last Tuesday after an urgent request for assistance in combating raging forest fires.

The forestry department said the results of its crew’s mission had been successful ones and have made a major contribution to dealing with the fires in Lebanon, while strengthening at the same time the Republic of Cyprus’ position on establishing a firefighting base for aircraft in Cyprus under the rescEU mechanism.

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.