In 2020, 7,024 refugees arrived in Cyprus – 2.5 times fewer than last year. This decrease is attributed to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which has affected the whole world to a greater or lesser extent.

It is noted that the majority of migrants came to the country through the occupied North – this fact has further exacerbated the Turkish-Cypriot relations: the head of the Ministry of Interior of Cyprus Nikos Nouris directly accused Turkey of conniving at the diversion of the flow of refugees to its forced neighbors on the island.

In “pre-coronavirus” 2019, Cyprus received about 17,000 migrants. Now there are about 35,000 people claiming refugee status, almost 4% of the population.