Possibly, not even a short explanatory text is needed for what the Paphos Municipality’s clean-up campaign revealed in the otherwise world-famous Tombs of the Kings area, despite the juxtaposition of the photos to show the incredible state under which some people live today.
The campaign was undertaken by the Municipality of Paphos in the context of upgrading all areas of the city in terms of aesthetics, functionality, and health. However, the images that he and the Municipality’s crews saw, Mayor Phedon Phedonos told Phileleftheros, were beyond the most morbid imagination.
To talk about third-world conditions in which African migrants lived for months in an apartment complex in the area of Tombs of the Kings is little to describe what one saw, he said.
Suffice it to say, he pointed out, that the sewage system was not working and the residents there were using the roof of the building for their physical needs.
The Mayor of Paphos complained that the electricity and water supply to the apartment complex had been cut off for six months and yet migrants, mainly of African origin, were living in basements and parking spaces that had been converted into makeshift accommodation. The owners of the buildings, now owned by commercial banks, had converted the parking lots and basements of the buildings into places for migrants to stay, he said.
Crews of the Paphos Municipality removed tons of rubbish these days, while the public health situation was so marginal that, according to Phedon Phedonos, the Police and the Fire Brigade had to be called to the scene to take all necessary actions to assist the Municipality’s cleaning crews in order to eliminate this unacceptable and dangerous disgrace in a tourist and busy area of Kato Paphos.
Six of the apartments in the block of flats were occupied by migrants until the start of the campaign to restore normality, the Mayor of Paphos said, and they will now be moved to licensed premises with the assistance of the District Welfare Office.
However, he said, it is unacceptable for migrants to receive rent allowances for apartments that have had neither water nor electricity for months.
