The President of the Republic of Cyprus (RoC), Nikos Christodoulides, has revealed that during the next month 800 to 900 refugees and immigrants will be resettled to Germany. In this regard, he thanked the German government for the support and for accepting refugees and immigrants from Cyprus, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Through a post on Twitter on May 25, German Federal Government Spokesperson, Steffen Hebestreit, wrote that after a state visit by President Christodoulides to Germany, its country continues to support a solution in which Cyprus becomes a federal state with two zones based on the decisions of the United Nations.
“Germany continues to support a solution in which Cyprus becomes a federal state with two zones based on the decisions of the UN,” he wrote”
As InfoMigrants reports, Christodoulides said the Republic of Cyprus, a country of just 1.2 million people, has received the highest number of migrants per capita.
At the same time, over the past week, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has also called for stricter immigration rules as part of an ongoing effort to reform the EU’s asylum system in order to limit immigration to Germany and other EU countries.
Among the four EU countries that have recorded the most irregular arrivals this year are Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus with more than 62,000.
Moreover, in the first four months of 2023, almost 3,500 asylum seekers arrived in the Republic of Cyprus, where most of them came mainly from the northern part of the island controlled by Turkey. Meanwhile, last year, the country recorded around 17,000 irregular arrivals compared to 12,000 arriving in 2021.
At the end of December 2022, the first group of asylum seekers from Cyprus was transferred to Germany through the new resettlement scheme of the European Union.
Based on this scheme which aims to relocate asylum seekers between member countries to ease the burden, a total of 48 asylum seekers were accepted by Germany from Cyprus.
Besides, in March of this year, the Minister of the Interior of Cyprus, Constantinos Ioannou, revealed that since 2016 the country has registered a total increase of 490 per cent in terms of the number of requests submitted for international protection.
According to him, the number of applicants, as well as holders of any form of international protection in this country, was higher than 55,000. He also pointed out that only last year a total of 21,565 new applicants were registered, emphasising that this figure constituted 50 per cent of the total number of applicants in the Mediterranean.
In addition, the information provided by the Minister shows that a total of 857 unaccompanied minors arrived in Cyprus within ten months.