Refugee crisis: Syrians arrive at a British base on Cyprus

There is still some confusion about how many refugee boats landed on Akrotiri. Initial reports said two arrived. The Ministry of Defence later confirmed three boats, but later reports said four boats were involved.

The MoD has just issued a statement saying “number of boats with migrants on board have landed on the short of RAF Akrotiri.”

It added:

At the moment our key priority is ensuring everybody on board is safe and well and when we can release further details we will.

“We have had an agreement in place with the Republic of Cyprus since 2003 to ensure that the Cypriot authorities take responsibility in circumstances like this.

“Events like this underline why it is important for us to develop a comprehensive approach to the migration crisis working with our international partners to provide humanitarian assistance in Syria and neighbouring countries; to disrupt the trafficking gangs and to address the root causes of instability that cause people to seek a new life elsewhere.”

The Croatian news site HRT has broadcast footage of refugees crossing the Sulta river to get from Croatia to Slovenia. It quoted one refugee as saying: “The river is very cold. We need help, clothing, food, we are completely wet.”

The group spent the night sleeping rough after the crossing the river, it said.

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Peter Sutherland, the UN’s special representative for Migration, said the influx of refugee to Slovenia once again highlights the need for countries across Europe to do more to help.

The EU’s migration chief Dimitris Avramopoulous is due to hold talks in Slovenia on Thursday to discuss the crisis.

A EU programme to relocate up to 160,000 asylum seekers is underway, but so far the numbers involved are small.

Firefighters have extinguished that fire at the migrant camp in Brezice, on Slovenia’s border with Croatia, AP reports.

The cause of the fire is not known, but and refugees migrants had been lighting fires outside their tents in the camp which is a temporary home to thousands of people.

Many of those at the Brezice camp arrived in the dark of night after wading or swimming across the Sutla River in temperatures close to freezing.

In the last month more than over 20,000 migrants have entered Slovenia from Croatia, with many thousands more on their way.

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The nationality of the refugees and migrants who washed up at Akrotiri base is still not confirmed.

Earlier police spokesman at the base George Kiteos told local media that they “appear” to have come from Syria.

But speaking to Helena Smith he said it still remained unclear whether all the refugees were Syrian.

Can the Syrians who arrived at Akrotiri claim asylum in Britain? As the case of the Iraqi Kurds illustrates this is still a matter of legal dispute.

But since then Britain and Cyprus have agreed that refugees who land on sovereign UK territory are handed over to Cyprus.

Asked whether refugees would be able to claim asylum in Britain, an MoD official said: “that’s not our understanding”.

Britain fears setting a precedent that could encourage other asylum seekers to regard the Sovereign Base Areas as a fast track to the UK from the Middle East and north Africa.

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21 Oct 201505.56 EDT

Helena Smith

A spokesman for the British bases on Cyprus confirmed that 110 refugees are being held at the Akrotiri base, writes Helena Smith.

“They arrived on the coast in the bit of the base that is closed off. They were brought to shore and are currently in the process of being identified and screened,” George Kiteos, a police spokesman of the British bases told the Guardian. “What happens to them next is up to the politicians to decide.”

Connie Pierce a British spokeswoman there, said the refugees were being held in the base’s military zone and that it was very unlikely there would be press access to them today.

A Cypriot government official said cooperation on the matter would be dictated by the memorandum of understanding that exists between the Republic of Cyprus and the British-run bases. “We are ready to help if requested … for the moment all the individuals are under the control of the bases. We have no involvement whatsoever,” said Olivia Michalidou, spokeswoman for the island’s civil defence department.

This is the first time in the current refugee crisis that refugees have landed on Akrotiri, but the base is still at the centre of a long-running legal battle involving Iraqi Kurds who arrived there in 1998.

At the time the administration on the base tried to pass the burden on to the Cypriot authorities but was told the migrants were Britain’s responsibility, as Michael Theodoulou explains.

The migrants were moved from Akrotiri to Dhekelia several months later. They were housed in rudimentary, former married quarters for British service families that were due to be demolished, and provided with weekly welfare allowances. It was meant to be a temporary measure.

Sixteen years on, 21 of the boat people remain in Richmond Village. With children born there and family members who later joined them, they make up a group of 67. Just over half are children, all of whom are stateless.

The Richmond villagers are embroiled in one of Britain’s longest and most bizarre refugee dramas. “Our situation is unbearable,” Layali says. “We feel so cut off from the rest of the world. We’re in limbo.”

The “forgotten village” has no shops, no amenities and just a handful of dusty streets. It feels a world apart from Dhekelia’s nearby main military compound, where British forces and their families lead busy lives in a well-ordered setting that resembles a chunk of middle England transplanted into the Mediterranean.

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The Akrotiri base went into lockdown when the refugees arrived, according to ITV’s Emma Murphy who was on the base at the time to report on British airstrikes against Islamic State militants.

She reports:

The strangest of ironies is that the lock-down was the result of at least 140 migrants, mainly from Syria, washing ashore in small boats on a beach at the base.

Many of those brought to safety were fleeing the tyranny of Isis - they reached safety as Tornados took to the skies on another anti-Isis mission.

Welcome to live coverage of the refugee crisis in Europe after 140 Syrian arrive at a British military base on Cyprus and a fire broke out a migrant camp in Slovenia.

Here’s a roundup of what we know:

• A possible new front in the migration crisis has opened up after four boats carrying refugees from Syria arrived at RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus. The refugees, including women and children, have been transferred to a temporary reception area at the sovereign base, which has been used to launch airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
  

• A fire has broken out at a camp for migrants in Slovenia. Some refugee tents have burned. More than 20,000 migrants have entered Slovenia since Saturday when the refugee route toward Western Europe switched toward the Alpine nation.
• Slovenia has granted powers to the army to manage its border. The new law allows to troops to warn, direct and temporarily restrict the movement of persons or engage in crowd control.
• The European Union is calling for another extraordinary summit on the migrant crisis. A statement from EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s office on Wednesday said “there is a need for much greater cooperation, more extensive consultation and immediate operational action.” Nations invited to attend are Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.