Twenty-one years today since the opening of the roadblocks and Jenny Duzen refers to statistics from the “Ministry of Tourism”, according to which, the crossings to and from the occupied territories from April 23, 2003 until today, totaled 155 million.
According to the GTP, the publication added that crossings, which ranged between 4-6 million per year in the early years, increased to 13 million in 2019, just before the pandemic.
In the years 2020-2021, due to the restrictions of the pandemic, there was a decrease and the crossings reached 3-4 million.
In 2022 the number of crossings reached 13 million again. Finally, in 2023, a total of around 15 million crossings took place. In the first month of 2024, almost 2 million crossings took place.
It is also reported that looking at the change of crossings by community at crossing points in Cyprus over the years, it is found that in the early years, the percentage of Turkish Cypriots was quite high compared to Greek Cypriots and citizens of other countries, but this changed in recent years and Greek Cypriot crossings increased to 43% of the total crossings.
Looking at the data of the last 16 years, in 2008, 53% of the total crossings were made by “citizens of the Greek Cypriot Republic”, 29% by citizens of other countries and 19% by Greek Cypriot citizens of the Republic of Cyprus. As of 2022, the crossings of “citizens of the Republic of Cyprus” decreased to 29% of the total crossings, while the percentage of citizens of the Republic of Cyprus among the total crossings increased to 43%.
In the increase of crossings, it is mentioned, in addition to the devaluation of TL, it is considered that a role was played by the fact that Greek Cypriots pass through the occupied territories more often for shopping.
On the other hand , during the pandemic, when crossings were limited, the share of crossings by Turkish Cypriots in the total number of crossings increased significantly. This is due to the fact that Turkish Cypriots, during the pandemic, were able to cross into the Republic-controlled areas to work, the newspaper writes.
Source : KYPE
