Over 100 refugees land on British base in Cyprus

Nicosia: Some 120 refugees crowded in two boats landed at a British airbase on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus on Wednesday, bringing the crisis that has rocked much of Europe to British sovereign soil.

Personnel at the Royal Air Force base at Akrotiri, near the island’s second city Limassol, said those who came ashore included women and children and all were in good health.

“There were two boats carrying around 120 people, there are no reports of anyone being unhealthy and we are trying to establish where they came from,” a British bases spokesperson told AFP.

Akrotiri — from which British planes are carrying out air strikes against Daesh — lies in one of two base areas over which Britain retained sovereignty when Cyprus won independence from colonial rule in 1960.

But the British defence ministry said that it expected the refugees to be handed over to the Cypriot authorities once they had been processed.

“We have had an agreement in place with the Republic of Cyprus since 2003 to ensure that the Cypriot authorities take responsibility in circumstances like this,” a ministry statement said.

Before that deal was signed, refugees landing on the bases had been left in legal limbo.

In 1998, a ramshackle fishing boat crammed with 75 refugees landed at Akrotiri. Seventeen years on, some of them are still living on another British base on the island, after repeated appeals for asylum in Britain were turned down.

European Union member Cyprus lies just 100 kilometres off the coast of Syria but has so far avoided a mass influx of refugees from the country’s conflict, with most preferring to bypass the island.

Britain too has been spared the huge wave of refugees that has swept through Greece and the Balkans headed for Austria and Germany.

Meanwhile, Germany is open to using military aircraft to repatriate refugees whose requests for asylum have been rejected, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday.

“Obviously, the usage of the Transall is not ruled out. But only in the event that all civilian transport capacities are exhausted and if it does not affect the German army’s priority missions, then could such troop carriers be (an option),” she said.

With a record one million asylum seekers expected to arrive in Germany this year, Berlin wants to speed up the process by which unsuccessful applications are returned quickly to their home countries, in order to free up resources to provide protection to those fleeing war and persecution.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said that it was “clear that for repatriation by air, civilian aircraft would be used as a priority”.

“But in the event that civilian capacity is insufficient, then ... we will look at possibly using army aircraft,” he added.

Besides Transall military aircraft which can transport between 50 and 60 people each, the German army also has two Airbus A310 troop carriers, which are fitted out like civilian planes and can carry 200 people each.

Although Cyprus has not been a favoured destination for refugees risking the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean, several rescue operations have been undertaken for boats that got into trouble off its coast.

In September, 115 refugees, including 54 women and children, were rescued from a small fishing boat that ran into trouble about 40 nautical miles off the southern port of Larnaca.

Last year, 345 Syrian and Palestinian refugees were rescued by a cruise liner in stormy waters off the island’s coast.

Two months later, about 220 Syrian refugees crammed onto a fishing boat were rescued off the coast of Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus after hitting rough seas.

Under an EU deal reached last month to relocate 66,000 refugees in Italy and Greece, Cyprus has agreed to accept 147, while Britain opted out.