NICOSIA: Cypriot authorities said Tuesday they had towed a boat carrying 38 Syrian refugees to shore after it was found in the Mediterranean off the northwest coast of the island.
Police said the 33 men, four children and one woman on board were safely brought to land in the early hours of Tuesday after setting sail from Turkey.
The new arrivals told police they had waited for days to board a boat on the Turkish coast to be smuggled to Cyprus at a cost of $2,000 each.
All received medical checks and food while police took down their personal details. They are expected to be moved to a reception center outside the capital Nicosia.
In recent months there has been a steady trickle of Syrian migrants arriving in the same area of Cyprus from Turkey, with 305 people in two boats rescued in September.
Cyprus, a EU member state located 100 miles from Syria’s Mediterranean coast, has not seen the massive inflow of migrants experienced by Turkey and Greece.
Nonetheless, Nicosia has raised alarm bells telling Brussels than that the EU needs to act as it receives more and more asylum seekers.
EU data puts Cyprus fourth among the bloc’s 28 nations according to the number of asylum applications per capita.
UN migration figures show that the number of asylum demands in Cyprus has risen eightfold this year to 818 by the end of the third quarter, as opposed to 106 in 2016.
Since September 2014, over a dozen migrant boats have reached the island, bringing more than 1,700 migrants.
Cyprus brings boat carrying 38 Syrian refugees to shore
Cyprus brings boat carrying 38 Syrian refugees to shore
Hundreds mourn in Syria’s Homs after deadly mosque bombing
- Officials have said the preliminary investigations indicate explosive devices were planted inside the mosque but have not yet publicly identified a suspect
HOMS: Hundreds of mourners gathered Saturday despite rain and cold outside of a mosque in the Syrian city of Homs where a bombing the day before killed eight people and wounded 18.
The crowd gathered next to the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque in the Wadi Al-Dhahab neighborhood, where the population is predominantly from the Alawite minority, before driving in convoys to bury the victims.
Officials have said the preliminary investigations indicate explosive devices were planted inside the mosque but have not yet publicly identified a suspect.
A little-known group calling itself Saraya Ansar Al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its Telegram channel, in which it indicated that the attack intended to target members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam whom hard-line Islamists consider to be apostates.
The same group had previously claimed a suicide attack in June in which a gunman opened fire and then detonated an explosive vest inside a Greek Orthodox church in Dweil’a, on the outskirts of Damascus, killing 25 people as worshippers prayed on a Sunday.
A neighbor of the mosque, who asked to be identified only by the honorific Abu Ahmad (“father of Ahmad“) out of security concerns, said he was at home when he heard the sound of a “very very strong explosion.”
He and other neighbors went to the mosque and saw terrified people running out of it, he said. They entered and began trying to help the wounded, amid blood and scattered body parts on the floor.
While the neighborhood is primarily Alawite, he said the mosque had always been open to members of all sects to pray.
“It’s the house of God,” he said. “The mosque’s door is open to everyone. No one ever asked questions. Whoever wants to enter can enter.”
Mourners were unable to enter the mosque to pray Saturday because the crime scene remained cordoned off, so they prayed outside.
Some then marched through the streets chanting “Ya Ali,” in reference to the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law whom Shiite Muslims consider to be his rightful successor.
