NICOSIA, Cyprus: Following a wave of racially motivated violence against immigrants that began in the island’s western region last week and expanded to its southern city of Limassol during a weekend rampage, Cyprus Police have made 20 arrests.
Asian delivery drivers were attacked, and storefronts belonging to migrants in the island’s second city were destroyed, in a series of violent episodes that began on Friday night and persisted until early on Sunday. In recent years, Cyprus has witnessed a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment as well as an increase in disruptive conduct that was previously limited to inebriated tourists and soccer hooliganism.
22 people were arrested last week after hooded assailants randomly attacked Syrian residents of the western Cyprus community of Chlorakas.
Undeterred, about 500 individuals traveled to Limassol on Friday and went on a rampage, attacking foreign-owned businesses and individuals who did not resemble Greek Cypriots. Three Southeast Asian nationals were reportedly beaten and robbed throughout the course of the night between Saturday and Sunday.
According to advocacy groups, state officials’ bungled response to a spike in unauthorized immigration to the island in the eastern Mediterranean and their tolerance of xenophobic discourse and behavior are to blame for the most recent unrest.
Despite the fact that the rate of rise has slowed this year, state officials routinely claim that Cyprus is at the forefront of illegal migration in the eastern Mediterranean.
Through a permeable cease-fire line dividing the island, migrants enter Cyprus from the nearby Middle East as well as from Africa.
Doros Polycarpou of the advocacy group Kisa said, “For ten years, our government used rhetoric that more or less portrayed these people as a real national, ethnic, and demographic security threat.” “They used the narrative, they created the framework, the demands from the society but they couldn’t deliver the necessary action,” he told Reuters.
Cyprus itself has a large number of internally displaced persons from conflicts between Greek and Turkish Cypriots starting in 1963, and a Turkish invasion in 1974 which uprooted more than 200,000 people. A large number of people still live in the government-facilitated housing hastily constructed after the conflict.
According to social media accounts of witnesses, among the victims of the weekend’s violence were a group of visitors from Kuwait.
Senior diplomat Kyriakos Kouros said a protest was lodged by an ambassador of an Arab state Saturday after tourists were targeted.
“They cut short their visit. I doubt they will ever return,” Kouros, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on the social media platform X on Sunday, posting a picture of the departure of a group at an airport. One member of the group was in a wheelchair.
“It is the first time I have felt so embarrassed about such an incident in our country,” he wrote. “This isn’t the Cyprus I was born, raised, had a family and am getting old in,” he said.
![NEW YORK: Pakistan's former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, leading Pakistan’s high-level parliamentary delegation, on Tuesday warned that India's aggressive actions pose a serious threat to peace in South Asia and urged the international community to take note of India's aggressive conduct. Bilawal was addressing a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York on recent regional developments after the military conflict between India and Pakistan. The Pakistani delegation is in New York to present Pakistan’s stance on the military escalation with India and to challenge New Delhi’s narrative at the global level. The visit is part of Pakistan’s sustained diplomatic outreach to brief key UN stakeholders on the alarming regional situation. The Pakistani delegation is also scheduled to arrive in Washington today, where it plans to engage with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, other senior officials, lawmakers, and think tanks till June 6. The team will also visit London and Brussels. Speaking at the press conference, Bilawal said that he wanted to use the opportunity to share Pakistan’s perspective on the recent military conflict with India in the wake of the Pahalgam attack and the way forward. Bilawal said that the “illegal strikes” launched by India as part of its ‘Operation Sindoor’ were “in violation of the UN Charter, international law”. He said the attacks had targeted civilian infrastructure, places of worship, energy infrastructure and innocent women and children. He said India had used the April 22 terrorist attack in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir’s (IIOJK) Pahalgam as a pretext to launch the attack inside Pakistan. Following the Pahalgam incident, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif offered publicly to India that Pakistan was ready to be part of any impartial international investigation into this attack. “We did so because we were confident, our hands were clean and we had nothing to do with this terrorist attack. “We expressed our sympathy with the victims of terrorism and Pakistan has consistently and unequivocally condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” he said, adding that PM Sharif had immediately expressed Pakistan’s willingness to India and the global community to be part of any impartial international investigation. “Indian government refused Pakistan's offer and chose instead to conduct their illegal strikes. Pakistan only then acted in self-defence, we never initiated any violence against India,” Bilawal said. Bilawal emphasised that Pakistan never initiated hostilities against India but responded to Indian aggression by downing six Indian fighter jets. "The Pakistani military had responded with precision the night of the first Indian attack and only targeted and downed six planes because we believed those were the ones to release their load on Pakistan”. He stated that US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio played a vital role in achieving a ceasefire during heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours. “We’ve seen during the course of this conflict how quickly the escalation ladder between our two countries rose and the concern is that the next time there is such an incident, there may not be time for the international community to intervene before things get a lot worse. That is why it is absolutely important for Pakistan and the international community to continue to pursue dialogue and diplomacy as the only viable path to peace.” He said Pakistan’s position was to hold a “comprehensive dialogue” with India that would include the issue of terrorism as well. The head of the Pakistani delegation said that no civilized nation can support the use of water as a weapon and urged the international community to play its part, questioning, "What would be the global reaction if someone’s lifeline was cut off?" He stressed that Pakistan has paid a heavy price in the fight against terrorism and has suffered the most. “The single largest number of terrorist attacks that take place in any one country is Pakistan. The single largest number of victims of terrorism is Pakistan. I myself have suffered at the hands of terrorists. My mother [Benazir Bhutto] was assassinated by the terrorists.” Bilawal also criticised India for targeting water reservoirs and civilian areas, including mosques, during its attacks. Calling negotiations the only path to peace, Bilawal reiterated that the unresolved Kashmir dispute remains the root cause of regional instability. He urged the global community to take notice of India’s aggressive conduct.](https://wenewsenglish.com/storage/2025/06/Bilawal-Bhutto-Zardari-300x180.jpg)
