A group of refugees who were rescued from a fishing boat in rough seas offshore Paphos on 25th September have crossed over to North Cyprus, ‘Kibris Postasi’ reports.
42 people of Syrian origin have already been arrested by police in Famagusta, the reports says.
It is claimed that 200 out of 345 escaped to the North because they had been badly treated by South Cyprus authorities. The paper writes that they were transferred to hotels in the North.
The TRNC does not host refugees and, according to a UN Refugee Agency report, 20 Syrians were forcibly deported to Turkey in 2013. The same source says that the Turkish government estimates that there are over 1.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.
