For around €500, the smugglers offer a comprehensive package that includes planning, crossing, and asylum application costs.

The expansive Pournara refugee camp is located just a few kilometres from Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. Initially designed for approximately 1,000 migrants, the camp opened four years ago. However, by the end of last year, a European Commission report, as cited by the German Tagesschau news portal, revealed that the camp was accommodating twice the intended number of residents.

The refugees, predominantly from Africa and the Arab world, live in containers, crammed tightly together. Entry is only possible with an administrative escort and after a lengthy authorisation process. Although the situation has reportedly improved in recent months, conditions are still appalling. No one here wants to be recognised. No names should be mentioned

– the German site reports. Tagesschau has also quoted refugees living there. Two members of a group who arrived in Turkey from Pakistan say they have obtained a student visa for northern Cyprus, but after a few days they fled to the southern, Greek part of the Cyprus and applied for asylum there. They verified the existence

of a vast network of people smugglers operating in nearly every town in the north of the island. Contact can be made rapidly, facilitating then the so-called „green border escape”, which can be organised at any time for a few hundred euros.

As is known, the so-called green border divides Cyprus into a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish part. Those who manage to cross from north to south are in the EU, which is the main destination for many refugees. And although the Republic of Cyprus is not part of the Schengen area, many see it as a stepping stone to Germany, France or Italy, and there is no easier, cheaper and safer way into the EU for people from Africa or Asia, migration researcher Gerald Knaus told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper. The island is at the crossroads of a unique new immigration movement.

Tagesschau also quotes Professor Nikos Trimiklinotis from the University of Nicosia, which has been following this development for a long time. He and his team regularly publish studies on the island’s refugee problem, and Mr Trimiklinotis says that the number of refugees from the north of the island is very high, as is the profit made by the human smugglers. He says that it’s

a dirty business that exploits the most impoverished, and with many other escape routes now sealed off, the prices are soaring to new heights.

He also indirectly blames the administration on the Turkish part of the island, which he believes is doing too little to prevent people smugglers from conducting business and is making it way too easy for them to cross the border with their clients and customers. For around €500, the smugglers offer a comprehensive package encompassing planning, border crossing, and assistance with the asylum application process. A significant majority, 75% of refugees from the Turkish region, opt for the overland journey, with only a small fraction risking the perilous sea route.

The problem is that since Turkey does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus as a state, direct negotiations on the refugee problem are not possible. As long as Cyprus remains divided, the EU’s door will remain wide open,” Tagesschau reports.