NICOSIA – With the highest number of refugees and migrants per capita in the European Union, Cyprus is getting some relief in dealing with them, Germany agreeing to take in up to 900 to live there.

President Nikos Christodoulides made the announcement after a state visit to Germany, which also backed his hopes the island split by Turkish invasions in 1974 could be reunified, rejected by Turkish-Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar.

“Germany continues to support a solution in which Cyprus becomes a federal state with two zones based on the decisions of the UN,” German Federal Government Spokesperson, Steffen Hebestreit tweeted, noted SchengenVisaInfo.com in a report.

https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/germany-to-accept-nearly-900-refugees-from-cyprus-next-month/

While Germany agreed to aid Cyprus, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also called for stricter immigration rules and reforms of the European Union’s asylum system to limit refugees and migrants in the bloc.

Among the four EU countries that have recorded the most irregular arrivals in 2023 so far Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus with more than 62,000 in a population of about 1.2 million.

In the first four months, almost 3,500 asylum seekers arrived on Cyprus, many crossing from the Turkish-Cypriot occupied northern third of the split island after some 17,000 arrived in 2022.

At the end of December 2022, the first group of asylum seekers from Cyprus was transferred to Germany through the EU’s new resettlement scheme to try to spread them out although some countries have refused to take any yet.

In March, Cyprus’ Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said that since 2016 the country has had a 490 percent increase in terms of the number of requests submitted for international protection, the site’s report also said.

He said there were more than 55,000 applicants for asylum, including 26,565 in 2022 as the COVID-19 pandemic was waning and international traffic was picking up again by air.