Hundreds of peace protesters rally outside British base in Cyprus
Peace protesters rally outside the Royal Air Force Akrotiri base near the Cypriot coastal city of Limassol
Limassol – About 300 peace protesters rallied on Sunday outside Britain’s Akrotiri military base in Cyprus, charging it is fuelling regional conflicts in Gaza and Yemen.
The demonstrators demanded the closure of military bases that have been under British control since the eastern Mediterranean island nation’s independence in 1960.
They carried a banner demanding a “Ceasefire Now” in the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Palestinian territory since October 7 while another read “Stop funding genocide”.
Some online reports in Britain have pointed to UK and US military flights from Akrotiri to Tel Aviv and charged they were carrying military supplies for Israel.
A British defence ministry spokesperson told AFP that “British Forces Cyprus continue to support the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and no RAF flights into Israel have transported any lethal cargo”.
The spokesperson also said that a British naval vessel “with the support of British Forces Cyprus, delivered 87 tonnes of UK and Cypriot aid to Egypt for the people of Gaza”.
Police stood between the protesters and the gates of the Royal Air Force Akrotiri base, a British overseas territory near the southern coastal city of Limassol.
The head of the Cyprus Peace Council, Tasos Kosteas said at the demonstration: “Cyprus is a living example that military bases do not solve problems, do not provide stability and security, but intensify militarisation and perpetuate tension.”
The march was organised by the Cyprus Peace Council and supported by the leftist opposition party AKEL, the group United For Palestine and other leftist groups.
A United For Palestine activist, Leandros Fischer, a professor from Limassol, said the base was also used in recent US and British bombing of Yemen’s Huthi rebels, after the Iran-backed group had attacked ships in the Red Sea.
Fischer said that protesters also voiced “opposition to the very presence of British bases on Cyprus’ soil” and that they make the island “a potential target”.
Vera Polycarpou, AKEL’s head of international relations, said “we’re demonstrating against the uses of the bases against the peoples of the region, against the bases’ presence in Cyprus. We want them to be dismantled.”
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack of October 7 on southern Israel, which resulted in about 1,140 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel in response vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a relentless military campaign that the Gaza health ministry says has killed nearly 24,000 people, most of them women and children.