No fewer than 20 people have been arrested by Cyprus police after they held a march against migrants and refugees on the island’s second-largest city, Limassol, turned violent with mobs vandalising property.
The police said said that no fewer than five people were injured during the unrest on Friday evening after about 500 people took to the streets for the march.
Rubbish bins were set alight and some shops were vandalised, police said. Witnesses quoted by Cypriot media outlets said some foreigners were attacked during the march.
According to Reuters news agency, Asian delivery drivers were assaulted and storefronts belonging to migrants were smashed as the violence continued until the early hours of Sunday.
Police used water cannon to disperse the protesters, some of them hooded and holding a banner that read “Refugees not welcome”.
Overnight Saturday to Sunday, three people from southeast Asia were attacked and robbed, state media said.
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Among the victims were a group of visitors from Kuwait, according to social media accounts of witnesses.
Senior diplomat Kyriakos Kouros said a protest was filed by an ambassador of an unnamed Arab state on Saturday after tourists were targeted.
“They cut short their visit. I doubt they will ever return,” Kouros, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on the social media platform X on Sunday, posting a picture of the departure of a group at an airport. One member of the group was in a wheelchair.
“It is the first time I have felt so embarrassed about such an incident in our country,” he wrote. “This isn’t the Cyprus I was born, raised, had a family and am getting old in,” he said.
The incident came days after about 20 people were arrested during violent clashes between Cypriots and migrants and refugees near the western resort of Paphos, where authorities have started removing Syrians from a condemned apartment complex.
Video footage on social media showed a group of Greek Cypriots chanting “Get out, get out” during the demonstration. It turned violent, police said, when the Greek Cypriots came face-to-face with a group of Syrians.
The violence continued after about 500 Syrians held a peaceful counterprotest, according to police, who said they used tear gas and water cannon to disperse both sides.
European Union member Cyprus says it is a “front-line country” on the Mediterranean migrant route, struggling to cope with an influx of undocumented migrants and refugees.
The latest EU data shows Cyprus has the highest number of first-time asylum applications relative to population in the 27-member bloc.
Authorities said last week that migrants and refugees comprise an estimated 6 percent of the island’s population. The EU’s average is approximately 1 percent.
Refugee camps in Cyprus are overcrowded. In many places, ghettos have formed where people live in poverty.