NICOSIA, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus is currently experiencing a dramatic increase in the arrivals of unregulated immigrants who arrive in numbers it cannot cope with, Interior Minister Constantinos Petrides said on Saturday.
"The number of irregular immigrants and asylum seekers has topped 1,000 per month. We have long exceeded our capacity and soon we'll not be able to manage the problem," the minister told state radio in an interview.
"Unregulated immigration of such numbers is definitely not a viable situation," he added.
The European Union announced on Thursday that it had allocated 31 million euros for the improvement of refugee accommodation centers.
"Euros will not help solve the problem. What is urgently needed is an automatic mechanism of allocating refugees among EU member states. It is not possible to expect that only three or four countries will shoulder the immigration problem," Petrides said.
He added that Cyprus, a country with a population of just over a million and part of its territory occupied by Turkish troops, has been experiencing an increase in unregulated immigration over the past few months.
Thousands of refugees from Syria and other countries have established their residence in Cyprus, and their relatives are joining them for permanent stay.
"Cyprus has become their final destination. Refugees and immigrants who arrive here do not intent to travel any further to other European countries," he said.
According to Petrides, the biggest number of unregulated immigrants arrive from Lebanon, which is hosting about one million Syrian refugees, from Turkey either through the occupied part of Cyprus or directly by boat, and also from Syria itself.
The minister could not envisage a solution to the influx of Syrian refugees, given the fact that 6 to 7 million people have left the country, unless Syria becomes again a safe country for its population.
Petrides criticized the European Union for keeping aloof from the process of finding a peaceful solution of the Syrian problem, despite the fact that it has to shoulder almost alone the immigration problem.
