UN: Cyprus must tackle increase in asylum seekers
NICOSIA (AFP) – Cyprus must improve its capacity and standards to cope with the highest intake of asylum seekers per capita of any EU country, a senior official of the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said yesterday. The European Union as a whole recorded 19 percent fewer asylum applications in 2004, compared to population, falling to the lowest level in almost a decade, it said. But Cyprus last year had the highest figure in the EU, amounting to 12.4 applicants per 1,000 inhabitants. «There is no denying the fact of the growing number of asylum seekers entering the country,» Oluseyi Bajulaiye, UNHCR’s deputy director for Europe, told a news conference in Nicosia. «There are one or two areas that need to be looked at, such as how those applying for asylum are treated, access to procedures and strain on infrastructure,» he added. Bajulaiye, on his first official visit, said he was «satisfied» the Cypriot authorities were trying hard to cope with the backlog of applications by increasing manpower, special training and introducing a computerized system. He also acknowledged that Cyprus’s location on the EU’s easternmost border makes it «easier for asylum seekers to come here,» mainly from the Middle East, Asia and the Caucasus. Another factor was the high number of people who arrive as students – mainly from Bangladesh and Pakistan – and then decide to apply for asylum. The Mediterranean island has experienced a sharp increase in asylum applications, creating a backlog that conservative estimates say could take months to clear. By the end of last year, Cyprus had more than 10,000 registered asylum applications – double that of 2003 – but most of these are thought to be bogus. «Numbers have to be reduced tremendously because it does create anxiety for the individual and creates problems on resources,» said the UNHCR official. The trend seems to be continuing, with asylum requests for January 2005 reaching 931, compared to 241 for the same month last year, before Cyprus joined the EU in May. Bajulaiye said the island’s «reception facilities do not meet EU standards.» But the UNHCR was «trying to give more support to new EU member states, some of them located along new external borders where asylum seekers arrive and they have an obligation to receive and process them.» Nevertheless, he said the tendency to lump asylum seekers, bona fide refugees and illegal immigrants all in the same group must be avoided by the authorities and the public at large.
