Cyprus and Lebanon have long had an agreement in place that migrants who arrive in Cyprus by boat are returned to Lebanon, which is said to be a "safe country".

But an increasingly hard line on migrants and asylum seekers taken by both sides is creating tensions.

At the center are 116 Syrians who boarded a boat in Lebanon last week bound for Cyprus, EU territory.

Following the boats’s departure from Lebanon, authorities there issued an alert, and the migrants were picked up on Sunday off Cyprus.

The next day, three Cypriot police and national guard vessels escorted them back to Lebanon, but they were denied entry, Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said.

"Unfortunately, the authorities of Lebanon did not accept the return of those on board the Lebanese vessel," AFP quotes Ioannou as saying. He said he did not know the reason for the refusal to allow the migrants to disembark.

"Lebanon has a very big problem" with migration, said Ioannou, adding that the issue would be handled politically.

Two days after they were initially rescued, the Syrians were transferred to a camp on Cyprus, migrant rescue organization Alarmphone reported on X (formerly Twitter).

Also read: Cyprus: Child dies after drifting in Mediterranean for days

Controversial returns agreement

The return of Syrian nationals from Cyprus to Lebanon has previously attracted criticism from the UN refugee agency UNHCR. In August, its office in Nicosia told the AP news agency that deportations between states without legal and procedural safeguards for people who may need international protection were against international and European law.

The UNHCR said it was concerned that Syrians had been returned from Cyprus to Lebanon without being screened to determine whether they needed protection and who may be deported back to Syria.

Alarm Phone, which runs an emergency hotline used by migrants in distress, expressed its opposition to the agreement, accusing the Cyprus authorities of attempting an illegal "pushback".

However, Cyprus continues to insist that the returns are legal under the bilateral agreement. It claims that the Israel-Hamas war, which has created tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border, has weakened Lebanon’s ability to monitor its territorial waters and prevent the departure of migrant boats.

"The situation in Lebanon itself is difficult at the moment," AFP reported Ioannou as saying.

Praise from German president

Cyprus is the EU’s easternmost member state. The number of asylum seekers on the Mediterranean island is relatively small, but they represent more than 5% of the island’s population of less than 1 million – the highest proportion of any country in the EU.

During a state visit on Tuesday, the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier praised the Cyprus government for its efforts in taking in refugees, the German news agency dpa reported.

Steinmeier, the first German head of state to make an official visit to Cyprus, made the comments after inspecting a reception and accommodation center for migrants in the town of Kofinou. The center currently accommodates up to 450 people, but is being expanded.

"After visiting this reception center, we can say that the local authorities are really doing everything they can to ensure that people can stay there in dignity," Steinmeier said.

Also read: Cyprus: We don’t want to cause problems, say migrant business owners targeted by racist violence

Trouble in Lebanon

Less than 200 kilometers from Cyprus, Lebanon hosts around 1.5 million Syrian refugees, according to government estimates. Political and public hostility towards the refugees has increased, and they have been heavily scapegoated for Lebanon’s economic and political problems. In 2023, thousands of Syrian refugees were deported from Lebanon back to Syria.

At the same time, the number of Syrians crossing into Lebanon has been increasing, according to Lebanese officials. In October, a Lebanese government minister proposed that Syrians be allowed to leave for Europe via the Mediterranean, a journey that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of people.

While the Lebanese army responded that it remained committed to preventing boat departures, the number of Syrians fleeing Lebanon in an attempt to reach Cyprus or Greece by boat has continued to rise, particularly in the months since the Israel-Hamas conflict.

With AFP, AP, dpa

The article was updated on February 15 to add that the 116 Syrians were transferred to a camp on Cyprus.