Within three years, irregular arrivals to the Republic of Cyprus have decreased by 86%, while the repatriations of migrants have almost tripled, the Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection, Dr Nicholas Ioannides, has said.
He was presenting the results of the government's migration policy at the Press and Information Office in Nicosia.
From the first half of 2022 until the first half of 2025, the number of irregular arrivals to Cyprus decreased from 9,307 to 1,260 respectively.
In that same time period, he added, the number of new asylum applications in Cyprus decreased by 87%, from 12,048 in H1 of 2022 to 1,520 in H1 of 2025.
He also pointed out that since the establishment of the Deputy Ministry until the end of June 2025, the number of pending asylum applications decreased by 26.5%. As he said, pending applications amounted to 23,934 in June 2024 while they were 17,604 in June 2025, adding that "most asylum applications submitted constitute misuse" of the process.
He also stated that in June 2025, the Deputy Ministry's negative decisions (relating, among other things, to first-instance rejection, withdrawals, revocations) were 5,638 and the positive ones (relating to the provision of complementary protection and refugee status) were 336.
