CYPRIOTS visiting relatives in Syria are now stuck in the warring country, unable to get out, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.
Antonis Theocharous, from the ministry’s crisis management department, said yesterday that a young Cypriot man is currently in Aleppo while a Cypriot woman in the advanced stages of pregnancy is about 25km away from the Turkish border. Her two children are also with her.
Both went to Syria in July while “about a week ago”, their families got in touch with the Cypriot authorities to let them know they had tried and failed to leave the country, Theocharous said.
The situation in Syria remains extremely precarious. United Nations military observers who were monitoring a ceasefire between President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and rebels yesterday left Damascus, according to Reuters news agency.
And in Aleppo - where the Cypriot man is based – up to 30 people were killed yesterday during shelling by Syrian government forces, the Associated Press said.
The ministry “regularly talks” with the two and is trying to secure their safe transportation, said Theocharous, adding that transporting a pregnant woman on the roads of Syria would be tricky.
“For the time being our advice is for them to remain where they are,” he said.
Cyprus still maintains an embassy and a consulate in Syria. However, the foreign ministry issued a warning against travelling to the country in March and has renewed warnings since.
For more information on the situation there, members of the public may call the crisis management department at 22-801000.