By Ifigenia Theodoridou

Residents of the Menoyia community and surrounding areas staged a protest on Saturday against the planned construction of the Limnes migrant reception centre.

“We are seeking information from authorities to ensure the safety of our residents and children. Based on what we have heard – without any official confirmation – around 3,000 people will be housed there, and we have no idea what to expect,” Menoyia community council leader Sotiris Andreou said.

Andreou did not specify what would put residents or children at risk.

Andreou called for a meeting with the relevant authorities, while Anglisides community leader Eleni Sakkada claimed that local residents “have not received the same attention as foreigners.”

Holding placards reading “We will not live in fear, we demand safety NOW” and “You ignore us, but we will not be silenced,” community members voiced their demands for answers.

They read aloud a letter set to be sent to President Nikos Christodoulides, the president of parliament, and the ministers of interior, justice, education and transport, as well as the deputy minister of migration.

Sakkada clarified that they were not calling for the project to be halted but insisted that the facility should remain closed – meaning that migrants would not be allowed to leave the premises – because “we shouldn’t have to be afraid to leave our homes.”

She also sought to emphasise that “we are not racists or xenophobic.”

“The concentration of large numbers of people in a confined space may create conditions that will lead to increased crime and security problems, directly affecting families and residents living and working in the area.”

They called for concrete measures to maintain social cohesion, prevent tensions and avoid situations that could endanger the quality of life of citizens.

However, a recent study by the renowned German economic policy research institute ifo found that immigrants and refugees do not have a higher tendency to commit crime.

“We find no correlation between an increasing share of foreigners in a district and the local crime rate. The same applies in particular to refugees,” ifo researcher Jean-Victor Alipour stated.

“The results are consistent with international research, according to which migration and refugee inflows have no systematic influence on crime in the host country.”

Residents in the Menoyia surrounding area have long expressed their opposition to having the Limnes reception centre in the area, at times even suggesting separate schools for the migrants so as not to mix with “the locals.”

Not all community leaders share these concerns, however. Kofinou community leader Constantinos Antoniou previously told the Cyprus Mail that residents there live peacefully alongside asylum seekers.

“The presence of migrants poses no problems for us here. We have never had an issue. We coexist just fine,” Antoniou said.

“We’re all refugees in Kofinou. We know what it’s like to lose everything and have to start from scratch.”