Call them irregular, call them what you will. They are 28 human beings who have landed on our doorstep asking for help.
They will not leave, because they cannot leave. The traffickers do not offer return services. Tatar does not want them (nor do they want him), Christodoulides is playing tough to fit the spirit of the times, and Stewart has made it clear that beyond the care already being provided by the United Nations, there is nothing else he can do.
Procedures, according to international rules, are to be accepted by the one they knocked on the door of and to have their requests examined. If they meet the criteria, then asylum should be granted; if not, they should be sent back to their country (as hundreds have been this year, as we advertise).
However, we have made it a point of pride that we will not let them set foot on our territory. Not that the buffer zone isn’t our territory (at least when we want to sell patriotism).
“We will not allow a new crossing point to be created through the buffer zone. We see no reference to the root cause of this problem, the reason why these 28 people are there,” the government spokesman said.
But how can we know the root cause, the reason why these people are there, if we do not let them tell us their reason or at least their version of events?
And if we listen to them, then we can decide if there is a reason they travelled so many miles to come and camp in the buffer zone in temperatures ranging from 38° to 48°.
Why was a deputy ministry of migration established if it was just to tell Stewart, “take them to your house”?
And of course, Stewart will not take them in. He will pack his bags and leave, as others have done before him.
The 28 will await a deus ex machina to intervene and save them, and we will secure yet another rebuke from the United Nations.
But it is not about what foreigners will say or do to us. Anyway, even without the 28 migrants in the middle, the conclusions about our willingness to solve the Cyprus problem would be the same.
Regardless of the Cyprus problem and the report of the United Nations or other bodies, how do we treat 28 people who are in a difficult situation? Even if they have put themselves in this position, what do we do? Do we leave them to their fate and the mercy of God and then go to Mount Athos and ask for absolution?
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