Palestinian-Yemeni couple find love at refugee centre in Cyprus

The Kofinou refugee centre in Cyprus’s second city Larnaca witnessed a joyous celebration on Tuesday of the engagement of two young refugees residing there.

Mohammed, a 20-year-old Palestinian from a refugee camp in Lebanon got engaged to Lula, an 18-year-old refugee from Yemen in a simple event that was attended by family members and other residents of the centre.

Lula, dressed in a pink long-sleeved dress and matching hijab, received guests along with her new fiancé and posed for pictures before the dancing began.

Mohammed and Lula were among 115 refugees in two fishing boats that set off from Turkey last October before accidentally landing on one of Britain’s sovereign bases on the island in Akrotiri. Their smugglers had abandoned the refugees, who were left to fend for themselves.

Over one million refugees and migrants who were fleeing war and persecution crossed over to Greece in order to make their way to the EU countries in 2015, in what has been dubbed as Europe's biggest migrant crisis since World War II.

But refugees tend to avoid Cyprus, who consider the island to be isolated and cut off from their access to the EU.

The refugees who landed in Akrotiri were placed in tents in scorching temperatures as British and Cypriot officials argued over who should take responsibility. The refugees, who were mostly Palestinians and Syrians, had 29 children and 19 women with them, and complained that they were being treated as prisoners at the base.

But a month later the Cypriot foreign minister, Ioannis Kasoulides, said that his country will accept a “substantial number of asylum seekers”, and almost all of the 115 were subsequently moved to the Kofinou refugee centre.

Kasoulides’ comments contrasted with Interior Minister Socratis Hasikos, who stated that he preferred for the refugees to be Orthodox Christians in order to better integrate.

Hasikos later backtracked on his words, but insisted that Cyprus could not accept more than a few hundred refugees.

"We have already stated that 260, a maximum of 300, people can be taken in. Everyone [in the EU] should pitch in,” he said.