Faced with housing and benefits shortages, asylum seekers are migrating to villages, stirring debate among locals.
With the arrival of the evening bus from Nicosia, the central square of Palaichori – a village nestled in a valley of Cyprus’s Troodos mountains – briefly becomes a centre of activity.
At surrounding coffee shops, customers turn to watch the traffic back up as bus passengers spill into the street.
In a place where a passing car stirs locals’ curiosity, the loud conversations over the noise of the bus’s engine have shattered the staid atmosphere of the square.
Most of the dialogue is incomprehensible to the observers – greetings and farewells are conducted in various African Pidgin dialects.
The crowd disperses and the bus continues on its journey. Stillness resumes its usual place in the square.
Due to affordable rental prices, Palaichori, like many nearby villages, has become home to increasing numbers of African asylum seekers who are escaping homelessness in the expensive cities of Cyprus.
Over the past year, the Mediterranean island nation has become the highest per-capita recipient of asylum seekers entering the European Union.
According to Eurostat, from January to July of this year, 7,812 new applications for asylum were made in Cyprus, a country with a population of 850,000.
Faced with a shortage of housing and social welfare, asylum seekers are finding their own solutions while waiting for their claims to be processed.
“I was homeless and sleeping in a church in Nicosia but there were too many people there and it wasn’t healthy,” says Fidelis, a Cameroonian who fled his country’s civil war two months ago.
“Somebody told me there might be cheap housing in this village so I came on the bus one day to look. I didn’t know anybody here but luckily I met someone from Cameroon and they helped me find a place.”
The rural villages in the mountains of the island’s interior offer an idyllic image of life.
Communities are tight-knit, people know their neighbours.
Natural environmental barriers have afforded them protection over the centuries and they remain bastions of Cypriot culture and dialect. However, this sense of isolation also results in some people viewing outsiders with distrust.
Despite the challenges, Fidelis, who says he fled Cameroon after the military killed his parents, claims to be happy to have found a country where he can live safely.
“Some people when they see you, they look at you like a stranger,” he says. “But at least when I compare the situation back home, things are better here because I have safety and peace of mind.”
He gestures to the sparse furnishings in the apartment he shares with five other people.
“There are good people here also. Everything we have in the house was given by locals,” he says.
