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The EU is able to supply further assist to Cyprus because the Mediterranean island faces a pointy enhance in refugees arriving from Lebanon, a spokesperson for the EU govt advised reporters on Thursday (4 April).
“The European Fee is in shut contact with Cyprus on the highest political and technical ranges and stands able to additional assist Cyprus in managing this new problem,” Anitta Hipper, the EU govt’s spokesperson on house affairs and migration, advised reporters in Brussels.
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Hipper mentioned that EU businesses, reminiscent of border company Frontex and police group Europol, would “proceed offering the required monetary and operational assist”, including that 350 EU company employees are at present deployed on the bottom on the Cypriot frontier.
Lebanon has been one of many nations most affected by the refugee disaster brought on by Syria’s civil warfare, which has run from greater than a decade. It at present homes an estimated 1.5m Syrian refugees, in line with the UN refugee company the UNHCR.
The nation has been in political disaster for over a yr, which has left it and not using a president and harmed the financial system, with actual GDP falling by round 40 per cent since 2019.
Nonetheless, fast current will increase in migrant numbers from Lebanon prompted Cyprus to declare a “state of great disaster”, Nicosia’s president Nikos Christodoulides mentioned on Wednesday.
Some 2,004 individuals arrived in Cyprus by sea within the first three months of this yr, in comparison with simply 78 in the identical interval of 2023, in line with Cypriot authorities knowledge.
“The scenario is getting progressively worse, and previously few days we now have basically been experiencing an onslaught of rotting boats and refugees placing their lives in danger,” mentioned Constantinos Ioannou, Cyprus’s inside minister.
Cyprus needs EU help to Lebanon to be contingent upon stopping the migrant outflow, Ioannou mentioned.
The EU has offered €2.6bn in improvement and humanitarian help to Lebanon since 2011.
The European Fee’s worldwide partnerships spokesperson, Ana Pisonero, advised reporters that the EU continued to work with Lebanon on border management insurance policies, and {that a} new settlement was anticipated later this yr, with out giving additional particulars.
Throughout a go to to Cyprus on 22 March, EU fee vice-president Margaritis Schinas indicated that the EU may negotiate a migrant management cope with Lebanon on related strains to the €7.4bn pact it concluded with neighbouring Egypt final month.
“We had labored with Egypt for fairly a while, however I think about that it is completely reasonable to maneuver in a corresponding method with Lebanon,” he mentioned.
And Cypriot president Christodoulides is ready to satisfy EU Fee president Ursula von der Leyen in Athens on the sidelines of Greece’s ruling New Democracy celebration convention on the weekend.
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