The sad suffering of elderly refugees from occupied Famagusta in a shanty house on Piale Pasha Street in Larnaca causes outrage. Seniors are living with mould and dampness, with plaster falling on their heads. There is not even an elevator in the building and when they need medical help, their relatives lower them down to the ground floor in chairs. In a normal country, when the government agencies were alerted to such an incident, which in this case happened in 2019, they would have resolved the matter in a short time and it might never have seen the light of day. In ours, however, not only are self-evident problems not solved, but people are forced to publicly disclose their stories of humiliation, with the hope that someone will be kind enough to deal with them.
Four long years after informing residents of the deplorable conditions in the apartment building, the problem has yet to be solved. Incredibly, there was pressure from many to fix the dampness problem, which was exacerbated by the construction of an unauthorized building on the roof, which should have been identified years ago by the state agencies. The issue of the suffering residents was discussed twice before the House Committee on Refugees, before which it was even revealed that this is the same apartment building in which, according to a complaint, years ago a public sector executive reportedly closed the garage to tenants, turned it into an apartment and gave it to his son. Promises were made in Parliament to implement works that would solve the problem, but they have yet to be fulfilled.
All that has been done – and that by the Municipality of Larnaca – is to start repairing the front section of the block of flats, as part of the work being done in the area. When the project contractor saw what was happening inside the block of flats, he freaked out and informed the municipality, whose officials called a meeting in order to inform the… already informed services. In order to move the procedures and not to delay the works in Piale Pasha, the Municipality of Larnaca undertook to demolish the arbitrary building and to insulate the roof, charging the state for the cost. In between all these actions, MPs, such as Nikos Georgiou of DISY, took it upon themselves to inform about the condition of the building.
And here we are today, a step before the winter that will be nightmarish for the residents if work is not done immediately inside the building. This is why a few days ago the desperate residents also made a public appeal through the Phieleleftheros for repairs to the building, indicating that despite the fact that they have no title deeds they spent a lot of money to repair the damage to their homes, yet the problem is coming back.
The building has been expropriated and is pending inclusion in one of the lists of the ‘KtiZW’ Plan, which we must note is one of the most positive announcements of this Government. However, until this process is completed, it must be ensured that the living conditions of refugees are humane. The Planning Department has committed that internal work on the building will be carried out within two to three weeks. We shall see, and we will be here to monitor this.
