Cyprus’s Minister of Interior, Konstantinos Ioannou, said he raised the urgent need to help Lebanon, where some 2.5 million Syrians have taken refuge, in a letter to the European Commission’s Vice-President, Margaritis Schinas.
He mentioned, “The information available to us from the authorities in Lebanon is that there is an increase in the number of Syrians moving to Lebanon, and Lebanon is a barrier.”
“If Lebanon collapses, the whole of Europe will have a problem,” Ioannou stated.
This came after the authorities of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, announced that they had requested the bloc to review the situation in Syria to check whether it is still unsafe for asylum seekers to return.
This action follows a wave of racially motivated attacks on foreigners lately, amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment on the Mediterranean island.
Ioannou said that he will try to persuade the European Union and the United Nations to end Syria’s status as an unsafe country to which refugees cannot be returned.
