Sweet escapes and unscrupulous smuggling: Navigating criminalization on the Lebanon-Cyprus route

• In Event: Rethinking migrant smuggling: Narratives, perceptions and policies across routes

Abstract

At the height of Israel's 2024 warfare in Lebanon, Lebanese yacht owners offered informal, ad-hoc evacuations to neighboring Cyprus. These exclusive escapes stood in stark contrast to Cyprus's simultaneous crackdown on other vessels attempting the same crossing, under the guise of "preventing smugglers from taking advantage" of Lebanon's dire situation. These parallel spectacles highlight the fluid nature of migrant smuggling definitions, underscoring the class and racial hierarchies dictate whether one is cast as a facilitator of evacuations, or a transgressor of migration laws.
Drawing on critical approaches to counter-smuggling (Sanchez 2014; Gazzotti 2021; Keshavarz and Khosravi 2022; Achilli 2024; Papadouka, Montagna, and Serrantino 2024), this paper examines the bordering of irregular migration within the largely overlooked context of Cyprus. The Mediterranean island's de facto division between the Republic of Cyprus in the south and the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the north creates a
complex borderscape, offering loopholes for both those attempting irregular crossings as well as those working to stop them (Achiri and Klem 2024; Demetriou 2021; Trimikliniotis et al.2023). Building on ethnographic research and interviews with individuals involved in (counter-) smuggling in Cyprus, this paper looks at how counter-smuggling policies are used to prevent unwanted migration into Cyprus by criminalizing some as unscrupulous smugglers
while permitting others to facilitate hazard-free evacuations.

Author

• Nora Milch, University of Oslo