Livestock farmers will gather before the presidential palace on Friday to protest the management of the foot and mouth disease and demand a meeting with President Nikos Christodoulides, the newly founded association ‘Voice of Livestock Farmers’ said on Thursday.

“We expect that the president will accept that we enter the presidential palace to talk with him,” said the group’s spokesperson Stella Petrou.

The group called to end the culling of animals and further sampling, as well as for fair compensation for affected farmers.

“We want a clearer answer. Let them be fined for the missing animals and let them be compensated for the animals that killed them,” she said.

Calling on the authorities to determine compensation for affected farmers, Petrou said that as of now, it “sounds like [the farmers] won’t be compensated”, warning that the situation seems to have got out of control.

“Apparently, this situation is going nowhere. It now seems that the situation is out of control of the services. The virus has reached Pachna and Paleometocho,” she said.

The association had held a protest in Pachna earlier this week and last week to object to the slaughter and additional testing of animals in a livestock unit that had recently experienced the first outbreak of the disease in the Limassol area.

Tensions had arisen with the livestock feeders repeatedly alleging the authorities of mismanagement of the situation, peaking in some members of the group allegedly attacking a team of reporters present at the scene to cover the protest.

President Nikos Christodoulides, on his part, on Wednesday reaffirmed that he was ready to hold talks with the group and said there would be no second round of samplings.

“[We need to] work in the same direction, if we do not cooperate, we will not address this issue. Within this framework, of course, we are talking and we are ready to talk with everyone,” he said.