By Charlie Charalambous
THE ATTEMPTED deportation of seven Sudanese nationals, rescued from the Rida Allah ‘death boat’ six weeks ago, caused a mini-riot outside their Limassol hotel yesterday.
Police said that a large group of fellow boat people – afraid of persecution should they too be deported – surrounded a mini-bus when five of the seven Sudanese were transferred to it yesterday morning.
Others apparently pelted police with furniture from their hotel windows.
The immigration department had issued papers for their transfer from the Pefkos hotel to holding cells at Larnaca police station in readiness for their deportation, police said yesterday.
When a large group of refugees realised what was going on, bottles, pieces of furniture and other objects were thrown at the mini-bus and the police.
Reinforcements were sent in from Limassol police HQ to help calm down the situation and a decision was taken to postpone the operation until further notice.
In order to appease the refugees, police promised the UNHCR would be called in to re-examine their plight.
Two policeman were reported to be slightly injured during the incident.
The confrontation with police came a day after three Lebanese nationals were repatriated without fuss.
Ten Syrians, including the five-man crew of the Rida Allah, were sent home soon after the Syrian-flagged trawler was intercepted off the coast of Cyprus on June 29. The government later stated that all remaining passengers would be sent home, even though most of them were seeking asylum.
One-hundred-and-thirteen people, including eight children and two pregnant women, were rescued off the stricken vessel.
Limassol police yesterday said that none of the passengers, who have been staying at the Pefkos hotel in Limassol ever since their rescue, were, or ever had been, on hunger strike. “What hunger strike, there never was any such thing,” a senior Limassol police officer told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
A large number of the boat people began a hunger strike last month to protest their being sent away. Police dismissed the seriousness of the strike, saying the protestors were only skipping the odd meal, but the Aliens Support Movement said last week that a number of the boat people had been on hunger strike for 12 days.
Almost all the survivors – who come from Sudan, Sierra Leone, Congo, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Libya, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon – claim they face persecution in their home countries.
The passengers were desperate with hunger and thirst when a Ukrainian cargo vessel found them crammed aboard the deck of the tiny Rida Allah. They had been drifting for 10 days after the vessel developed engine trouble two days after leaving the Lebanese port of Tripoli on June 18.
Police said two passengers died of thirst on the fishing boat and had been thrown overboard before the vessel was found and towed to Limassol.
The Syrian captain of the trawler, 31-year-old Mohammed Mustafa, has been charged with causing death by negligence and carrying paying passengers on an unsuitable vessel. The survivors claim they parted with thousands of dollars each for passage to Greece or Italy on Mustafa’s boat.
