Cyprus riots over migrant influx: 13 arrested

Cypriot leaders met on Saturday to discuss a violent right-wing protest against refugees and migrants that erupted on Friday evening in the port city of Limassol. 

Police arrested 13 people after a mob vandalized shop fronts and set fire to scores of rubbish bins during an anti-immigration march. Among those arrested was the alleged organizer of the march.

An emergency meeting was held in the presidential building with the relevant ministers and heads of the police, civil defense and fire service.

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides condemned "images of shame" and suggested that the violence was the product of a group of petty criminals who had no real connection to the migration situation.

What happened in Limassol

A group of people wearing hoods attacked migrants and their businesses in Limassol on Friday evening. They threw incendiary devices and stones, and set fire to garbage cans.

Amateur video footage showed several damaged storefronts and the street littered with burning trash bins. A group of protesters could be seen chanting anti-immigrant slogans.

According to police, five people reported that they had been assaulted during the riots. All five were treated in hospital and released.

The violence erupted only four days after a group of Greek Cypriots tried to attack protesting Syrians in a village of Chloraka. The village has been a hotbed of tensions between locals and migrants.

Refugee crisis in Cyprus

Tensions over the large influx of migrants are rising in the eastern Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, where authorities have been overwhelmed by the numbers.

According to the Interior Ministry, refugees and migrants now make up 6% of the population, the highest proportion in the EU.

Refugee camps on Cyprus are overcrowded and cramped, and in many places, ghettos have formed where people live in poverty.

The island has been divided since 1974, and the Republic of Cyprus has been a member of the EU since 2004, but EU law and regulations only apply to the southern part of the island.

Cyprus governments have repeatedly complained that migrants from Turkey travel legally to northern Cyprus and from there cross the green border into southern Cyprus, thus entering the EU.

dh/lo (AP, dpa)