by Uzay Bulut, GATESTONE • October 5, 2022
The Republic of Cyprus, 36% of which is illegally occupied by Turkey, is increasingly struggling with a massive wave of illegal migration from Turkey, the Middle East and Africa. Migrants from Syria stand outside a kiosk in the village of Chlorakas, Cyprus, on January 31, 2022. Migrants now make up make up one-quarter the village’s residents. (Photo by Christina Assi/AFP via Getty Images)
- The Cypriot government says that Turkey is orchestrating this illegal immigration crisis, as most migrants coming to Cyprus travel from Turkey. They reportedly fly from Istanbul or Ankara to the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus, are then smuggled to the free, southern part of the Republic of Cyprus, and from there, under EU law, can apply for asylum.
- On September 11 of this year, the EU recognized the instrumentalization or “weaponization” of migration by Turkey….
- In 1974, Turkey invaded the Republic of Cyprus and forcibly displaced the indigenous Greek Cypriots from the north in a violent ethnic cleansing campaign, accompanied by murders, rapes, forced disappearances and other atrocities.
- Since then, Turkey has implemented policies meant to erase the Hellenic identity and civilization of occupied northern Cyprus.
- More financial support or migrant housing centers are not the solution to the illegal immigration crisis in Cyprus. The unending number of illegal migrants are apparently intended to outnumber and replace the indigenous Cypriots. Cyprus suffers from both illegal Turkish occupation and the mass illegal migration.
- “This year… We had 4,250 births so far, as opposed to 12,000 migrant arrivals. This is not happening anywhere else in the European Union.” — Costas Constantinou, director general of Cypriot Interior Ministry, Cyprus Mail, July 5, 2022.
- What the Republic of Cyprus appears to need is an end to the illegal Turkish military occupation and an end to the EU’s appeasement of Turkey.
- “Turkey, which illegally occupies one third of our country, is exploiting immigration to change the demography of the island for political purposes…. Many argue that the time has come when the Cypriot government should follow the example of Denmark, Poland, Greece or Hungary to stop this ongoing nightmare.” — Savvas Iacovides, veteran Cypriot journalist, to Gatestone, September 2022.
The Republic of Cyprus, 36% of which is illegally occupied by Turkey, is increasingly struggling with a massive wave of illegal migration from Turkey, the Middle East and Africa.<
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Cyprus now has the highest number of asylum applications per capita of any EU country. Nearly 5% of the island population, according to the country’s officials, is now made up of asylum seekers.
The Cypriot government says that Turkey is orchestrating this illegal immigration crisis, as most migrants coming to Cyprus travel from Turkey. They reportedly fly from Istanbul or Ankara to the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus, are then smuggled to the free, southern part of the Republic of Cyprus, and from there, under EU law, can apply for asylum.
Since 2018, Cyprus has experienced a large increase in the number of people illegally arriving in the country and then applying for asylum.
@Reader
Antisemites often use Naturei Karta as examples of anti-zionist Jews. There are many opinions in every group. This doesn’t make them representative. I assure you, I lived for a month in the Shevchenko District of Kyiv. If Ukrainian nationalism were not a thing, Shevchenko wouldn’t have been in my face everywhere. Unless they named all those streets and parks because of how much he drank.
@ketzel
Ukrainian national identity was created by Poland and by Austria-Hungary.
Before that time, to be called “Ukrainian” was an insult.
There still exists a group of people called “Ruthenians” (Rusiny) in Western Ukraine who speak a dialect of Ukrainian, decry “Ukrainian imperialism”, and wish for Russia to take over Ukraine.
Shevchenko died of cirrhosis of the liver because he drank too much liquor.
No one said that he had a good relationship with the Russian government.
I am getting really tired of this, so far, most of what you have managed to “dredge up” shows your ignorance.
Shevchenko was celebrated, but he spent many years in prison camps and was also forced to serve in the navy as punishment. He died in his early 50s, probably due to how hard his life was. I admit I don’t know him well, but there is no point in pretending he had a good relationship with the Russian government, because he was persecuted. It was more than about insulting the Tsar, his whole life was one punishment after another. It didn’t interest me much in 2019 and I haven’t followed it up, but I suppose anyone can make anything they like out of old stories that one didn’t follow up. If I cared, I could probably dredge up a bunch of examples for why Ukrainians have a national identity apart from Russia, but of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion. My opinion is that the Ukrainians sincerely believe that they are not Russians, except for the ones that do. This is apparently the cause of the initial trouble in those provinces. When I read Shevchenko’s most famous poem about Ukraine, I was moved but it wasn’t my thing. I’ll probably look him up again, because I like pointless literary research for its own sake. No irony there, I am very pedantic and enjoy footnotes as much as poetry.