NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) – Cypriot police rescue 60 Syrian migrants from a rickety wooden boat that had been at sea for six days, leaving five minors hospitalized, three in intensive care. authorities announced Wednesday.
Officials said the migrants were found about 35 miles (55 kilometers) from the island nation's southeastern tip and appeared to be lacking food and water.
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Police and military helicopters initially took three children and one adult to hospital after a passing commercial ship alerted Cypriot authorities to the presence of the boat off the island's coast before dawn.
Health services spokesman Charambos Charilau told The Associated Press that three minors were in critical condition and two were listed as critical. The adult taken to the hospital was treated for hypothermia and released.
Cyprus has seen a significant increase in Syrian migrants and recently rescued a boat that had been at sea for six days.
Three other adults with broken bones were treated by officers aboard the patrol boat that captured the migrant boat, police said.
The boat was towed to the port and the remaining migrants received medical treatment.
The ship left Lebanon on January 18, authorities said.
A Lebanese lawyer who tracks migration issues in the country said he was missing from the time the boat set sail until it arrived in Cyprus. He said the migrants were unwell because they had not eaten for days.
Lebanon's coast is approximately 168 kilometers (105 miles) from Cyprus.
Cypriot President Nicos Christodoulides thanked the authorities for their quick response in rescuing the migrants. But he said the Lebanese government needed to take steps to curb such departures “because we know they are Syrians from Lebanon.”
Although overall migrant arrivals to Cyprus have fallen significantly, the number of arrivals by boat has almost quadrupled, from 937 in 2022 to 3,889 in 2023, according to official statistics from the Ministry of the Interior. Almost all immigrants are Syrian.
Cypriot Interior Minister Konstantinos Ioannou said in a written statement that the ship's arrival was an “unfortunate” demonstration of how smuggling organizations are putting migrants' lives at risk by forcing them to travel in unsuitable ships. “proof,” he said.
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Mr Yoannou spoke to the European Union's Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, who recently visited Cyprus, about the urgent need to form a force of Europol members, Lebanese officials and the Cypriot Police to divide Lebanon's borders. He said that this is why he informed him.
He said when he meets other EU interior ministers in Brussels on Thursday, he will again propose to the EU to reassess the security of certain areas in Syria to allow the repatriation of Syrian migrants.
