Cyprus seeks UN help to stem asylum-seeker 'avalanche'
The interior minister of Cyprus says he’s seeking help from the United Nations to stem an “avalanche” of migrants who make their way from the ethnically divided island’s breakaway north across a U.N.-controlled buffer zone to seek asylum
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus is seeking help from the United Nations to stem an “avalanche” of migrants who make their way from the ethnically divided island’s breakaway north across a U.N.-controlled buffer zone to seek asylum in numbers that authorities cannot cope with, the interior minister said Monday.
Minister Nikos Nouris said 94% of the 15,130 asylum-seekers who filed applications with the divided island’s internationally recognized government in the south through August this year had traversed the buffer zone. That is double the number from the same period last year.
Nouris will travel to New York this week for meetings with the U.N. Secretary-General’s Cabinet Chief Courtenay Rattray and U.N. Under Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix to brief them in detail about the situation.
Nouris said the U.N. has no mandate under its 58-year peacekeeping mission in Cyprus to carry out operations aimed at halting the flow of migrants across the buffer zone. But the peacekeeping force has sole jurisdiction of the entire 180 kilometer (210-mile) no-man’s land.
