The Minister of Interior, Mr. Nikos Nouris, made today, at the Ministry of Interior, the following extraordinary statement to the journalists, about the immigration:
Citizens have become acquainted with the problem we face in immigration, especially after the visit of the President of the Republic last Monday at the First Reception Center "Pournara".
Our efforts to unload the First Reception Center with the transfer of 600 adult residents from "Pournara" to the "Limnes" Hospitality Center have also become known. 150 unaccompanied minors, for whom the Social Welfare Services have secured today the approval of the Council of Ministers for transfer to a hotel accommodation in free Famagusta.
At the time that in today's Session the Council of Ministers approved and additional credits to manage the current situation, in the last 24 hours we have received 317 illegal immigrants, all from the occupied territories, through Turkey, while I note that 292 of the 317 are single men up to 40 years old.
Examination of the immigrants' travel documents, as well as their own testimonies, clearly proves that they were instrumentalized by Turkey, since all of them arrived from the African countries in the occupied territories, via Istanbul, with the final destination being the airport of the occupied "Tympos". even holding a 60-day residence permit from the pseudo-state.
This is confirmed by the information that we will present and which will be forwarded in my letter to the European Commission - to the responsible Vice President Margaritis Schoinas, but also to the competent Commissioner Elva Johansson.
It is for this reason that the Ministry of Interior has set as its highest priority, both the effective management of the green line and the acceleration of the returns of those illegally residing in the Republic of Cyprus.
The information that we have and which is of course too much - due to personal data protection we will avoid giving names - testify from the stamps, in the specific passports that, while there is the departure from the specific African country - here in this case is Nigeria - exactly the next day there is the arrival at the airport of the pseudo-state in Tympos and the concession of the 60-day residence permit at the same time with the stamp.
There is a lot of information that has been collected. "Everything, without exception, will be forwarded to the EU, along with, of course, any other information that we deem should be used to prove clearly what we have been repeating for so long and saying, that there is a very clear instrumentation on the part of Turkey."
Asked about the 317 that arrived in the last 24 hours, whether additional measures will be taken at the points where they pass, in order to avoid a possible mass influx in the coming days, the Minister replied that "we are extremely sparing on the issues of green line surveillance. in our statements "explaining that" there are issues of national security ". "The guards know," he said, "and the security forces are aware. "What we are facing is something unprecedented and that is what we want to present today," the Minister concluded.
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