Several fires broke out in the occupied area of Cyprus over the weekend

Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (16.07.12) reports that a fire broke out yesterday around 12.45 o’ clock in the quarries’ area of occupied Kythrea village. The fire burned 1.000 donums [Translator’s note: a land measure of around 1.000 square meters] of scrubs, hundreds of cypress, carob and pine trees.

According to the paper, “citizens”, military units, the “police”, the “forestry department” and the “civil defense” exerted great efforts to put out the fire, but the intervention of helicopters was needed because of the features of the location where the fire broke out.

First the “authorities” of the breakaway regime asked for help from Mersin and afterwards from Adana Forestry Directorates. Mersin officials said they could not send helicopters because they had two big fires in their area and directed the breakaway regime “officials” to Kahramanmaras, which sent a helicopter with a three-hour delay.

According to the paper, a helicopter from the British sovereign bases in Cyprus also supported the efforts of putting out the fire.

Referring to the issue, Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika (16.07.12) reports that Turkey, which invests on mosques in the occupied area of Cyprus and not on their urgent needs, such as fire-fighting helicopters, had not permitted the purchase of a helicopter by the regime saying that a helicopter would come from Antalya to help in case of a fire. The paper writes that no helicopter from Antalya came yesterday and notes that only one helicopter from Kahramanmaras and two helicopters from the British bases came.

Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriot daily Haberdar newspaper (15.07.12) reports that two fires broke out on Saturday in the occupied area of Cyprus. The one was at Karavas area in a warehouse with chemicals and cleaning materials and the other at Koutsoventis area which destroyed 300 donums of forest land.