Tensions at Kofinou Refugee Camp Simmer Over - Several Injured in Fights
The tensions between the Palestinian and Somalian asylum seekers living in Kofinou refugee camp simmered over on Saturday May 14th in what was reported by the police as a drunken brawl caused by a Somalian man, but has its roots in the attempted rape of a Somalian teenage girl by a Palestinian man in December 2015.
At the time CyprusNewsReport published the story, the police questioned the Palestinian but he was then released back into the camp, after which the Somalian women lived in fear, says our source in the Somalian group of refugees.
The situation is obviously an accident waiting to happen. And yet, Interior Minister Socrates Hasikos has denied that the brawl in which four Somalians were injured was due to living conditions, instead putting the blame on ethnic divisions. However, the authorities have moved some of the refugees out of the camp after the fight, he said. It has not been confirmed whether the alleged rapist was one of them.
After the fight, around 60 Somalian women decided to protest outside the camp’s gates, even going so far as to sleep on the ground and refusing to come back inside.
Somalian women sleep outside in protest after the fight.
Funding from the EU
The authorities are given more than enough money by the EU to help reintegrate the asylum seekers into society, and yet it appears that the system is still not working correctly to give them a second chance.
Injured in the fight, a Somalian man returns from hospital.
Although the EU is handling more than the usual number of asylum seekers and refugees after the Syrian war, the principles of human rights still apply. It can be construed as cruel and unusual punishment for a 17-year-old girl to continue to be exposed to her alleged rapist, and it has been five months since the incident, yet nothing was organised to separate the two groups.
The best solution is for an effective, organised system of reintegration in which the refugees can find work and become useful members of society once more. The resources are there - is the state’s will there also?
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