A small boat with a total of 21 Syrian nationals on board arrived in Cyprus, near the village of Rizokarpaso, on Thursday morning.

The 21 people, all male, were spotted by the Turkish Cypriot police at around 9am, and were all arrested. It is unclear what will happen to them next, given that the north does not have any legal framework or formal policy regarding asylum seekers.

The arrival of irregular migrants in small boats in Cyprus has become something of a rarity in recent months, with the Cypriot government, the European Union, and other countries in the region all having made steps to stem the flow of irregular migrants to the island.

Firstly, a €1 billion financial support package from the EU to Lebanon signed in May last year some way to increasing Lebanon’s capacity to house refugees and prevent them from travelling across the Levantine Sea to Cyprus.

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Meanwhile, for much of last year, one of the Cypriot government’s flagship policies related to the issue was plans to have some regions of Syria declared safeto return migrants.

However, that plan was scuppered by the European Court of Justice in October last year, with the court specifying that the designation of a third country as a safe country of origin must cover the country’s entire territory.

Since then, Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown and replaced by Ahmed al-Sharaa, with it hoped that the new status quo in Syria may offer more stability and thus naturally bring the number of migrants down.

Earlier this year, Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos visited Damascus to meet both al-Sharaa and his Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani with the aim of building ties, though President Nikos Christodoulides last week insisted that any lifting of international sanctions on the country will not be permanent.

The Cypriot government has also made efforts to return migrants who are already here, with the Cyprus News Agency having reported in August that exactly 1,127 Syrian children aged between four and 18 years old had left Cyprus in the first seven months of the year within the framework of Cyprus’ voluntary repatriation scheme.

It said that in total, around 9,000 third country nationals have left the island since the beginning of the year, of whom 4,100 are Syrian nationals who partook in the voluntary repatriation scheme.

Those 4,100 included the 1,127 children.

Last year, a total of 10,098 irregular migrants who had been staying in Cyprus returned to their country of origin.