Refugees stranded on British Military Bases for over 20 years are granted indefinite entry and stay permit for the UK

A group of refugees, who had been stranded on a British army base in Cyprus for over 20 years, has been granted by the British government indefinite entry permit for the UK for permanent residence.  

The group of six families, represented by the law firm Leigh Day, had been fighting through the courts to obtain permission to enter the UK for nearly four years.Shortly before the final Supreme Court hearing on the case was due to beheard, the British government offered to settle the case by agreeing to grantall the families indefinite permit to enter the UK.

In October 1998, the six heads of families were amongst a group of 75 individuals from Ethiopia,Iraq, Sudan and Syria, who found themselves on the shores of the army base after the fishing boat with which they were travelling to Italy foundered off the coast of Cyprus. Following their arrival, the British military detained six of them for up to eighteen months as the British determined whether or not they were genuine refugees.

Between 1999 and 2000the six men and women were released after being recognised as refugees under the 1951 Refugee Convention following a procedure conducted by the Sovereign Base Area Administration in conjunction with the Home Office and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).  Those six men and women and their children have remained living on the Sovereign Base Area (SBA) ever since and launched a legal case against the government in January 2015 challenging the then Home Secretary, Theresa May’s refusal to give them leave to enter in November 2014.

They currently live in disused military accommodation on the SBA in Dhekelia, close to Larnaca, Cyprus. The families have had to endure deteriorating living conditions on theSBA with limited access to healthcare, living in bungalows which were due to be demolished in 1997 and which were found to contain potentially harmful levels of asbestos in 2008.

The UK Government has consistently denied legal responsibility for the Claimants and their families.Instead, it argued that the Refugee Convention was never extended to the SBA and that the families had no grounds on which to seek resettlement in the UK.