The number of people in prison in the north has fallen to 840, ‘interior minister’ Dursun Oguz said on Friday night.
Addressing the ‘parliamentary’ finance committee, where his ‘ministry’s’ budget was being deliberated, he said the 840 are of 35 different nationalities. He added that there are a total of 51 women from 15 countries and a total of 17 people under the age of 21 years old in prison in the north.
Additionally, he said, there are no minors under the age of 14 in prison in the north at present.
This figure has fallen from the total of more than 1,000 which was reported by Cyprus Turkish civil servants’ trade union (Ktams) leader Guven Bengihan in July.
He said at the time that there were an exact total of 1,050 currently inside, despite the prison’s stated capacity of 625 inmates.
With this in mind, he said “the workload of the 275 prison guards has increased”, and that they were being “constantly called to work” and being asked to work overtime.
He had added that the root cause of the problem is the number of third country nationals being employed illegally in the north.
“The prison is overflowing because the country is being treated like an inn and is telling people, ‘don’t ask, just come in’,” he said.
He added that the flow of migrants into the north is “causing serious social and criminal problems”.
“People coming from African countries in particular enter the country for the purpose of working illegally. They usually come to the country through the universities,” he added.
The issue of migration was also touched on by Oguz on Friday night, He made reference to the “migration amnesty” scheme, which saw a total of 6,165 undocumented migrants in the north given permanent status in August and September.
He said “nobody can enter the country with ease”, and added that “we want to preserve the TRNC’s feature of being a safe country”.
The amnesty had allowed undocumented migrants in the north, including those fined for having lived there illegally on or after January 1, 2021, to register and be incorporated into the north’s system with a work permit if they could find a job.
They were also required to pay a fine of 33,926TL (€887 at the time) within ten days of their registration.
