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| Courtesy Cyprus FAQ |
Cyprus is, of course, a divided country. It’s possible to cross the border in either direction, though it hasn’t always been, but there are a number of limitations and complicating factors, some of which depend on which passport you’re carrying. There are nine crossing points, the busiest of which is Metehan. (Well that’s another awkward bit. All of the crossing points have two unrelated names, one Turkish and one Greek - and no, they’re not simply translations of the same name). Depending on date and time of day waiting time can be as much as two hours at Metehan/Ayios Dhometios.
But the latest border crossing difficulty, as recounted by Cyprus Mail, is hard to figure out. It seems that a Bangladeshi national called Hasan Kibria inadvertently entered the North without benefit of documentation or process and is now due to appear in a military court. Kibria had recently arrived in Cyprus and was working as a motorcycle courier for a food delivery service. Not speaking English (or presumably much in the way of Greek or Turkish) he was reliant on GPS and seems to have been misdirected as he tried to find an address in Nicosia, which he had not known was a divided city. When he was unable to explain himself at a Turkish checkpoint he was arrested.
Meanwhile his employer had been faced with the unexplained disappearance of both employee and motorcycle. It took about a week before he learned the story after being contacted by the Turkish Cypriot lawyer assigned to represent Kibria. With luck the court will see the incident as an unfortunate accident and one unlikely to set a precedent for extralegal border crossings.
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