(AP) More than 1,000 Syrian nationals have withdrawn their applications for asylum or international protection because they intend to return to their homeland, while another 500 have already gone back, a Cypriot official said Friday.
Cyprus’ Deputy Minister for Migration and International Protection Nicholas Ioannides said after talks with European Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner that the development comes in the wake of the fall of the Assad government in Syria last month.
Cyprus has adopted tougher polices in the last few years to stem the arrival of thousands of migrants either by boat from neighboring Lebanon or Syria or from Turkey via the island’s breakaway Turkish Cypriot north. Cypriot officials had said that the percentage of irregular migrants relative to the population had been as high as 6% — six times the European average.
