Why? Because they hadn’t been brought to Italy!
These are not ‘asylum seekers,’ they are ‘asylum shoppers’ wanting to get to the best countries offering ‘services.’
From AFP at the Daily Star:
LIMASSOL, Cyprus: Hundreds of mostly Syrian refugees rescued by a cruise liner in the Mediterranean disembarked in Cyprus on Friday, after hours of refusing to budge and demanding to go to Italy.
A total of 345 migrants, mainly women and children, had been plucked from a boat in trouble off the coast of Cyprus Thursday by the cruise ship.
Some 700 paying passengers disembarked from the 157-meter liner at the port of Limassol, police said, but only 65 of those rescued at sea initially left the ship Thursday.
The others had refused to budge, the shipping company said.
The situation was resolved shortly before dawn Friday after police entered the vessel to talk to the remaining refugees, who finally agreed to leave, according to Marinos Papadopoulos, an Interior Ministry official.
See our entire ‘invasion of Europe’ series by clicking here.