(AFP) The small Mediterranean island of Cyprus has an outsized problem with irregular migration, says the interior minister of the EU member state located closest to the Middle East.
“For us, this is a state of emergency,” Nicos Nouris told AFP, adding that 4.6 percent of the country’s population now are asylum seekers or beneficiaries of protection, the highest ratio in the EU.
The Greek Cypriot minister accused Turkey, whose troops have since 1974 occupied the island’s northern third, of encouraging much of the influx of Syrian refugees and arrivals from sub-Saharan Africa.
Rights groups and observers have criticised Cyprus for squalid conditions in its overcrowded main migrant camp, which was rocked by clashes this month, and for alleged brutal treatment of some arrivals.
