A 33-year-old Syrian mother of six was arrested in the north in the early hours of Tuesday morning, it emerged on Wednesday, after attempting to travel to the Republic of Cyprus to claim asylum.
The woman turned herself in to northern Nicosia’s police headquarters just after midnight on Tuesday, accompanied by her six children, who are aged between seven and 14 years old.
She appeared in court on Wednesday, where police officer Serif Karabardak explained the sequence of events.
Karabardak said the woman had told the police that her husband lives in the Republic of Cyprus, that she had arrived from Turkey by boat alongside 15 other people, and that she had paid a total of €12,000 to make the journey. ‘
The woman had reportedly also told the police that when she landed in Cyprus, she was taken by a vehicle to a wooden area and told that she was in the Republic of Cyprus, before then realising that she was in the north, and asking a passerby for help.
Karabardak requested that the woman be detained at a student dormitory alongside her children for a total of 15 days. Judge Jale Erguden acquiesced.
What will happen to the woman and her children after those 15 days is not yet clear, with the north having no legal framework to allow those arriving from dangerous parts of the world to seek asylum.
As such, people such as the woman in question often get treated by the north as illegal immigrants.
As a result of this, many would-be asylum seekers who arrive in the north attempt to cross the buffer zone into the Republic, which is bound by international law to assess asylum claims filed on its territory.
However, the United Nations has in recent weeks accused the Republic of Cyprus of pushing would-be asylum seekers into the buffer zone.
