Current Events

According to the forecast, Cyprus will receive a lot of sunshine with breezes in the afternoons, especially in coastal regions.

Inlands will see strong or moderate winds at 3 to 4 Beaufort, while coastal areas can see 5 Beaufort strength winds.

Temperatures are predicted to be 17C, 22-24 C, and 27 C in the mountains, at the coasts and inland, respectively.

The President of the island nation Nikos Christodoulides took part in a futsal match at Nicosia’s GC School of Careers as part of the Telethon awareness campaign event.

The annual event, which is dedicated to those suffering from degenerative and neurological ailments, commemorated the late Thomas Efthymiou, formerly the deputy police chief of Nicosia.

President Christodoulides spoke to reporters on the event’s sidelines, explaining to them how the event is significant in not one, but many ways. He further added that he, along with the Minister of Justice, are dedicated to supporting initiatives both now and in the future.

He played with a team of Presidential Guard officers in 2 games of ten-a-side.

In a bid to prevent disasters in the Cyprus buffer zone, the peacekeeping forces of the United Nations in Cyprus have started training on all matters of fire safety before the onset of the summer.

The UN, in a Twitter post declared that the peacekeeping forces have already started to make their preparations to prevent disasters such as fires from breaking out in the buffer zone on the divided island of Cyprus.

They have started training with the module on managing fire safety, to help locate the reasons fire happens and neutralize them prior to that.

Greece’s Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias has announced that Greece will be sending military help to evacuate Cypriot and Greek citizens from conflict-ridden Sudan.

Dendias emphasized that safely rescuing citizens is the topmost priority, and that the government of Greece is working with its allies and partners to achieve that goal. And this, of course, includes citizens of the island nation of Cyprus.

To that end, the Foreign Ministry of Greece is constantly communicating with other EU nations to coordinate a potential rescue operation for EU citizens.

Dendias intends to raise this issue as a priority at the oncoming Foreign Affairs Council meeting of the European Union in Luxembourg.

According to Andreas Katsaniotis, the Greek deputy minister of diaspora, over 120 Greek and Cypriot citizens have requested evacuation from Sudan.

The crisis itself has emerged from armed conflict between opposing military groups in Sudan.

The Cyprus Police are actively searching for a 34-year-old woman who they suspect stole a 61-year-old man’s car and thereafter sold it.

According to Michalis Nicolaou, the chief and spokesperson for the CID in Paphos, the woman burglarized the 61-year-old man’s office, and stole several items – including his car keys.

The police believe that the woman then proceeded to take the car, which at that time was parked outside of the office.

The police did locate the car being driven by a man, 24 – on the basis of a tip-off. The police questioned the man, who failed to give adequate answers – and then arrested him with an illegal possession of stolen vehicle charge.

Upon further investigation, the police found out that the 34-year-old woman in fact sold the car to the 24-year-old man who was found driving it.

The Cyprus Police is requesting the public to help them locate a man from Limassol.

The man, Angelous Pericleous, 31, has been missing from his home for over 72 hours.

According to the police, there is a strong suspicion that Pericleous might have been abducted, based on the fact that his car was discovered burnt at a shooting range in nearby Paliometocho.

The man has been described as being around 1.60 meters tall, having a medium build, short black hair, as well as a beard. Witnesses last saw him wearing a trousers, a t-shirt, and trainers – all black in color. Other identifying markers include a tattoo on his left wrist, and another “half-sleeve” style tattoo on his right arm.

Over 14 individuals have succumbed to influenza during the winter in Cyprus.

Those who passed away include a girl, aged 8, a 24-year-old who had the A-Type Influenza, and a 37-year-old, who died of Type-B Influenza.

According to the Ministry of Health’s Valentinos Silvestros, a total of 440 people were hospitalized, including 274 minors.

The data was collected between late December 2022 to Early March 2023.

The government of Cyprus is all set to open 4 new embassies.

According to a statement by Theodoros Gotsis, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, the Cyprus High Commission in Kenya has reopened, whereas three others – in Manama, Bahrain and Buenos Aires, Argentina are set to open soon. Furthermore, the Cyprus embassy in Indonesia is set to reopen in later 2023

In his statement, Gotsis remarked how the embassies will help strengthen their inter-country relations – given that Argentina is one of the biggest countries of Latin America, and Indonesia is the world’s largest Islamic country.

Last but not least, several Cypriot diplomats will have their positions restored to what they were before the economic crisis.

The Dali Police in Cyprus are investigating an attempted murder, which involves a man, aged 26, being attacked and ending up in the emergency room with a skull fracture.

According to the statement by the police, the attack happened at 4 am in the morning. The victim, 26, was from Syria while the alleged perpetrator of the crime was a Romanian national, 38.

The police became aware of the incident after they received tips about the victim being found outside the bar.

The police have arrested the 38-year-old, who it seems worked at the bar as staff.

A man returned the lost wallet of a pensioner containing 288 Euros by submitting it in a police station.

According to the Famagusta Police, a man, aged 43 found the unattended purse and promptly submitted it to the local police station.

The wallet’s contents include hundreds of Euros worth of cash, along with 3 photos. The latter was used to find the owner of the wallet – a 76-year-old resident of Paralimni.

This incident comes close to another recent one when two teenagers submitted an unattended wallet with €1,150 in cash in another Famagusta police station.

Cyprus’s Aliens and Immigration Unit along with FRONTEX and Greek immigration enforcement deported several foreign nationals.

A Cyprus Police press release says that 29 individuals are being returned to the country of their citizenship.

21 of these were Pakistani and 8 of them Georgian nationals.

The mass deportation is the result of the coordinated efforts between the various organizations.

According to the press release, Cyprus has deported over 1,590 people, as of the 1st of January, 2023.

Cyprus is set to face heavy rain and thunderstorms, courtesy the high-pressure atmosphere over the island nation.

While the week is set to start off sunny, it is most likely to become turbulent, leading to heavy rains and possibly, thundershowers.

The in-between phases would include part-sunny-part-cloudy skies, random clouds, some isolated showers in elevated regions.

The end of the week will probably include a return to warm sunny weather.

To improve cooperation between the Mediterranean and the Middle East, Nikos Christodoulides, the President of Cyprus met with the Khalid Al-Falih, the Minister of Investment of Saudi Arabia at Nicosia’s presidential palace.

The event started with Al-Falih conveying the good wishes of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and King Salman to President Christodoulides.

The meeting’s discussions included a review of the relations between countries, avenues for cooperation, as well as ways they can further investment.

Al-Falih also attended the roundtable discussion of Saud and Cypriot leaders, which included the finance ministers of the two countries, and representatives of various public and private sector organizations.

The fields explored included information technology, communications, energy, logistics, transportation and health, among others.

The event ended with the two countries signing a cooperation program agreement.

In what is being considered an alarming number of traffic violations in single weekend, the Cyprus Police stated having issued over 600 tickets within a period of 48 hours.

The range of violations was very wide, and included over 297 people who were handed tickets for speeding and 54 for driving under the influence of alcohol. Yet another 24 were awarded tickets for not wearing their seatbelt, while 8 were given tickets for riding their motorbike sans helmets.

The total number also includes 11 individuals, whose car lacked adequate inspection, and 3 for driving vehicles with tyres unsuitable for the road.

The police in Cyprus have arrested two men for staging an armed robbery.

The men, both aged 55, “stole” a €30,000 bag, which a hotel worker was transporting to the bank.

It was only later that the police understood that the robbery was in fact staged, wherein the hotel worker and his accomplice conspired to steal the bag in the first place.

The police arrested both perpetrators, and are currently trying to find the origin of the bag.

Cyprus Police is currently investigating an incident of harassment and psychological abuse.

The police are investigating a permanent resident of the island nation, aged 33, who allegedly harassed and incited psychological violence on his ex-partner, a woman aged 38.

Michalis Nicolaou, a spokesman for the police said that the accused in question has been found sending aggressive messages to his ex-partner, besides following her and calling on her phone repeatedly.

This, despite the fact that the district court in Paphos issued a restraining order against the alleged perpetrator.

The man, who is now at large, is wanted by the police for disobeying the restraining order.

The police have issued an arrest warrant against him.

A scuffle among some Syrian nationals went brutal, leading to the involvement of stones, wood and other objects being used by the people involved to attack each other.

The Cyprus Police have released a statement on the matter, which says that they received a tip at around 8pm in the evening regarding a fight “between foreigners” in a Limassol apartment.

They reached there to find that over fifteen men – all Syrian nationals, had arrived at the apartment building, fought with and attacked some other resident, who also turned out to be Syrian nationals.

The fighting sent three to the hospital and injured several, who were then treated on the spot.

According to the police’s preliminary investigation, the fight was about labor differences between some of the foreigners.

The Cyprus Police in Limassol are investigating the death of a 7-year-old child.

The child, a Russian national and permanent resident of Cyprus was playing in a park in Garmasogia when he lost his consciousness and soon after died.

The ambulance was called and the boy was wheeled over to the emergency room. The doctors, however, pronounced him dead upon arrival.

According to his health reports, the child suffered from cardiac issues and had undergone a heart surgery a few months prior to his death.

The Cyprus Police in Nicosia is investigation an attempted murder case in a nightclub.

The incident, which took place between two men aged 38 and 24, started out as a fight and escalated quickly into greater violence.

Both men were admitted to Nicosia General Hospital and treated for sustaining stab wounds. They were found by the police at around 3 am.

Witnesses have stated that the younger of the two men were arguing with a third, who then proceeded to stab them with a knife.

The older man, who was working as a security guard then tried to break the fight up, only for the perpetrator to stab him in the chest. The man fled the scene immediately after the fact.

Police are currently on the lookout for the perpetrator. Meanwhile, the condition of the two men appears to be stable.

Over €3,000 were stolen from a petrol station in Polis Chrysochous.

Michalis Nikolaou, a spokesperson for the Cyprus police released a statement, which said that initially the owner of the station had reported his alarm going off late in the evening.

He later went to his workplace to see the glass doors shattered, €300 missing from the cash register, some bank documents, cheques as well as €3,000 euros, which was kept in a leather bag.

According to CCTV footage, the door was broken by a car which rammed into it, being driven by a man wearing a hood.

The Police later identified that the car in question had been as stolen from Paphos in January. They found it abandoned outside Yiolou.

The vehicle is currently being examined to gather further evidence.