The month of March has been designated as “Civil protection and civil defence month” by Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou, with the coming 31 days set to form part of his and the government’s plans to “reorganise” the civil defence and transform it into a “civil protection directorate”.

Speaking at an event held to mark the start of the month, he pointed out that the civil defence will likely be called upon more in the future, with “the increasingly frequent occurrence of extreme natural phenomena and man-made disasters” as well as climate change necessitating that the unit be strengthened.

This strengthening, he said, will be done through “a series of actions” with which the government will “target specific groups of people and utilise the modern tools offered by technology so as to educate people by providing them with useful information on preventing and responding to an emergency”.

He said the focus of this month will be children, with planned actions set to include simulation exercises and “other forms of information” which will all be adapted to the level of understanding of any given age group.

“Our goal is for children to acquire a culture of self-protection, prevention, and preparedness, so that, from a very young age, they will be able to develop a reaction mechanism to any form of crisis,” he said.

He added that at the same time, the government also aims to further its cooperation with local authorities, which he described as “key partners in the effort to protect people”.

He said efforts will be made to provide assistance to local authorities in this regard, “when and if the need arises”.

Meanwhile, he said, work is underway to boost Cyprus’ infrastructure on the matter of “population protection” in cases of emergency.

The main pillar of this, he said, is shelters in which people will be able to stay during bombing raids or air strikes.

He said that at present, the existing shelters can house around 30 per cent of the Republic of Cyprus’ population, but that the government’s aim is for that figure to reach 70 per cent.

This, he said, will go hand in hand with the creation of the “SafeCY” electronic application, with which people will be able to locate their nearest shelter in real time.

He said the application is expected to be put into operation “very soon”, and that it “utilises the possibilities offered by modern technology to strengthen the mechanism for early warnings”.

On this matter, he said the government is already in the process of launching a “modern system” to inform the public of emergency via messages which will be sent to mobile phones, as well as the development of the 112-emergency number response system and the replacement of old air raid sirens.