In recent weeks, Cypriot authorities have stepped up nationwide enforcement raids targeting irregular and undocumented migrants resulting in dozens of detentions and deportations. These events are part of the country’s wider focus on stepping up the return of non-nationals to their countries of origin–something that the country also seeks to prioritise during its Presidency of the EU Council.
Since mid-December authorities have conducted a series of raids aimed at apprehending, detaining, and removing irregular migrants from the island. On Sunday 25 January, for example, media reported that the country’s Aliens and Immigration Service (YAM) had launched coordinated raids, with 120 officers targeting addresses that had been flagged by intelligence as hosting irregular third country nationals. By noon that day, 31 people had been detained.
Alongside apprehensions, authorities have stepped up removal efforts: between 10 December 2025 and 20 January 2026, 164 foreign nationals were deported from detention centres and prisons. According to several media reports, such removals are being coordinated by an interministerial “returns task force,” with the aim of freeing up space in overcrowded migrant facilities and prisons as well as ensuring a “net outflow” of foreign nationals.
These recent enforcement operations are part of a broader trend in Cyprus. During the past few years, there has been heightened scrutiny of the country’s migrant-control practices, which have included pushbacks at sea, asylum seekers being left stranded in the buffer zone, the alleged murder of a Pakistani migrant (Shoaib Khan) near the buffer zone, and claims of abuse by police during raids–such as in the case of a 2024 raid on an apartment in Limassol which resulted in the death of a Bangladeshi national (Anisur Rahman).
Focused on Returns
For many years, Cyprus has had the largest number of asylum applications per capita across the EU: in 2023, approximately 13,000 applications were lodged per 1 million inhabitants (compared to less than 130 per 1 million inhabitants in Hungary, Slovakia, and Czechia). While irregular arrival numbers have been decreasing more recently–largley the result of the fall of the Assad regime and the drop in numbers of Syrian refugees–the country was still described as facing “migratory pressure” by the 2025 European Asylum and Migration Annual Report.
In response, authorities have stepped up their efforts to return non-nationals to their countries of origin: from 9,699 (forced and voluntary) returns in 2023, to 11,400 in 2025. (Amongst EU Member States, Cyprus issued the most orders to leave relative to its GDP and population between July 2024 and June 2025.) Subsequently, in December 2025, the country’s Deputy Migration Minister, Nicholas Ioannides, told POLITICO that departures were now five times higher than arrivals.
Parliament has also passed new legislation to enable more returns. In December 2025, it passed a new bill which provides that persons granted asylum in Cyprus will lose their protection status if they commit crimes–making it easier for authorities to remove them from the country. In January 2026, it also approved an amendment to the Law on the Establishment and Operation of the Administrative Court for International Protection, reducing the time limits for appeals against rejected asylum applications, from 30 to 20 days (or in some cases, from 15 to 10 days). Also in January, the Administrative Court of International Protection issued a series of judgements in which it upheld the rejection of several Syrians’ asylum claims, ruling that the applicants no longer fulfilled the requirements of the refugee law or the Geneva Convention in light of recent developments in Syria. The Court’s rulings enable authorities to proceed with the applicants’ forced removals and paves the way for future removals. (UNHCR, however, continues to advise against forced returns to Syria.)
The country’s determination to ensure returns appears likely to impact its Presidency of the EU Council, which it assumed on 1 January and which will coincide with negotiations between Member States, the European Parliament, and the Commission on the proposed EU Returns Regulation. In its Programme for its Presidency, Cyprus explicitly states that “migration, asylum, and returns will constitute a key priority,” and that “the Cyprus Presidency will prioritise the full implementation of the Pact on Migration and Asylum and will promote a strengthened return system and deeper and more meaningful cooperation with key third countries, thus ensuring a balanced and comprehensive approach.”
Detention in Cyprus
The GDP has not independently verified the precise facilities in which non-nationals have been detained following the recent raids, however non-nationals can be held in variety of facilities in the country including the Menoyia Immigration Detention Centre (the country’s sole dedicated immigration detention facility), police holding cells, and short term holding facilities at Larnaca and Paphos airports. Non-nationals are also de facto detained at the Pournara Reception Centre, which functions as an ad-hoc immigration detention facility. Following a 2025 visit, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture noted that “the delegation found that foreign nationals continued to be deprived of their liberty in Pournara without a formal decision and without access to the consequent applicable safeguards. Such a situation may amount to arbitrary deprivation of liberty and, given that detention could last for an undefined period of time lasting from a few weeks to several months, this left detained persons in a state of uncertainty.”
As of February 2026, authorities are also in the process of opening a new pre-removal facility–the Limnes Migrant Centre–not far from Menoyia. Reports indicate that the facility will be composed of both accommodation units for asylum seekers, as well as a closed detention facility, and that it would replace Menoyia (which will instead be used as a criminal facility). Work began on the facility in 2023, with funding from the EU’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, and in February 2026 local media reported that the first phase had been completed–with the final phase due for completion this September.
The country also continues to detain non-nationals in police cells, a practice that has been heavily criticised for many years. According to the Cyprus Refugee Council, in 2024 24 police holding cells were used, with a total capacity of 197 persons. Although such cells should only be used for 48 hours, limited capacity at Menoyia has meant that non-nationals are often detained for long periods in holding cells.
International Criticism
The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has also long criticised Cyprus for its use of non-specialised facilities for immigration detention, dating as far back as the mid-1990s, which eventually helped spurred the country to build a dedicated detention centre. During a visit to the country in 2023, the CPT criticised the duration of detention in police stations, stating that “some lengths of stay were excessive, and varied from days, weeks, months and in rare occasions could even last for more than one year.” The CPT recommended that: “Cypriot authorities make every effort to ensure that the period of time spent by persons detained under immigration legislation in police establishments be the absolute minimum (that is, less than 24 hours).”
During a more recent visit in 2025, the Committee did not comment on the use of police cells. However, it visited the Pournara facility and Larnaca Airport Holding Rooms and issued a series of recommendations. These included ending the detention of families with children and of unaccompanied children, ceasing the routine practice of initially depriving asylum seekers of their liberty in Pournara, and ensuring that detention in airport facilities does not exceed 24 hours (one case documented by the Committee was that of a Ugandan national, detained without access to the outdoors, for 74 days between November 2024 and January 2025). During its fourth Universal Periodic Review in 2024, Cyprus was urged to reform its immigration detention practices–including by preventing collective arrests and detentions and ensuring that immigration detention is only used as a measure of last resort. Prior to this, the country also received several recommendations from the UN Human Rights Committee, such as to ensure that detention is only ever used as a measure of last resort and for the shortest duration possible, and to adopt Alternatives to Detention (ATDs).
