NICOSIA (Reuters) – Clashes broke out and fires were lit at an overcrowded reception centre for migrants in Cyprus on Friday, police and witnesses said.
Thick plumes of smoke were visible over parts of the Pournaras reception facility, some 22 km (14 miles) west of the capital Nicosia.
Witnesses told Reuters people from the camp could be seen fleeing and running along a mayor road nearby with their belongings.
Cyprus’s state broadcasting corporation reported the camp was being evacuated. Reuters could not immediately confirm this.
Police said clashes appeared to have broken out between two groups in the centre. The fires were extinguished by the fire brigade but sporadic clashes continued, police said.
Pournaras has been hosting well over its 1,000 person capacity as Cyprus struggles to cope with an influx of asylum seekers from Syria and from African countries.
Many travel to the southern part of the island controlled by the internationally recognised government of ethnically split Cyprus through a porous ‘buffer zone’ that separates it from the Turkish Cypriot-controlled area and bisects it east to west.
Authorities in Nicosia last week said that this year alone, 17,000 people had entered their jurisdiction through irregular channels. There were 12,285 in the whole of 2021.
(Reporting By Michele Kambas and Yiannis Kourtoglou, writing by Michele Kambas)
