Akrotiri boat people moved to Episkopi

SEVENTY-ONE of the 75 boat people in British custody have been moved to the Episkopi Garrison from the Akrotiri Air Base, Sovereign Bases Areas (SBA) Spokesman Capt. Jon Brown said yesterday.

The other four are still being held in Akrotiri, pending deportation by Cyprus authorities, Brown said. All four have asked to go home, and paperwork is the sole snag, he added.

The 75 – 41 men, 10 women, 19 children and five infants – had initially been housed in a converted office block, after pitching ashore on October 8 in a crowded, leaking boat described as “a floating coffin.” Their new quarters are “much better facilities. The (housing) block’s been fitted-out for them,” Brown said.

However, they are “still behind (barbed) wire,” Brown acknowledged, as they cannot be given free run of the military base, which houses British military facility, as well as housing for military personnel and their families. “(But) they can go out of the building, and can walk around,” he said.

Most of the 75 have been vague about their homelands, SBA Spokesman Rob Need has said, adding that none has asked for asylum in Britain. British authorities in Cyprus have indicated asylum in Britain is not on the cards for the 75 illegal immigrants.

When the 75 first pitched ashore, Attorney-general Alecos Markides insisted they were the sole, sovereign responsibility of Britain under the 1960 Treaty of Establishment, which ended Cyprus’ colonial status and ceded the bases in perpetuity to Britain as sovereign territory.

British authorities in Cyprus initially disputed Markides’ claim, but have meanwhile assumed the food, shelter and medical care of the boat people, including ensuring the 19 school-age children among them get classroom instruction. Both sides are co-operating to repatriate them, Need added.

Need said two of the boat people with teaching credentials were instructing both the school-age children and some of the adults in English and Arithmetic.

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.