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NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus police on Friday detained two males on suspicion of serving to two dozen Syrian asylum-seekers attain the east Mediterranean island nation aboard a rigid-hulled inflatable boat.
A court docket ordered the 2 males — aged 30 and 28 — held in police custody for eight days following their arrest a day earlier when the boat reached a small harbor on the island’s northeastern coast underneath escort by a police patrol vessel.
Police mentioned the youthful of the 2 males is suspected to be the boat’s driver. Each face prices together with aiding and abetting within the illegal entry of migrants into the European Union member nation.
Police mentioned authorities are processing the asylum requests for the 18 males, two ladies and 6 kids.
Authorities officers say 5% of Cyprus’ present inhabitants are asylum-seekers — 5 instances the EU common — and the nation has the best variety of asylum purposes per capita among the many bloc’s 27 nations.
The overwhelming majority of migrants attain Cyprus from the ethnically break up island’s breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and traverse a United Nations-controlled buffer zone to hunt asylum within the internationally acknowledged south.
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Observe all AP tales on international migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
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