The number has increased to 17,000 this year, an official from the Ministry of the Interior said on Thursday.

Arrivals of unaccompanied children in Cyprus has also trebled this year, Xinhua news agency quoted Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Costas Constantinou as saying to a parliamentary committee.

Cyprus is one of the so-called front-line Mediterranean European Union (EU) countries (MED5 group), which receive the largest numbers of irregular immigrants in relation to their populations.

Interior Minister Nicos Nouris told a ministerial conference of the MED5 group in Cyprus earlier this month that asylum seekers make up over 4 per cent of the country’s population.

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