NICOSIA (Reuters) - A court in Turkish-held northern Cyprus has sentenced 69 Iraqi Kurds
to 10 days in jail on charges they illegally entered the breakaway region believing they had
arrived in Italy, police said Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands of would-be immigrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa ply
the Mediterranean Sea with hopes of reaching prosperous European Union nations.

The migrants came ashore the remote Karpas peninsula of the breakaway enclave in Cyprus
after their smugglers told them they had reached Italy, a police official said. They arrived in
three separate groups last week and Monday, he said.

"We will accept any decision except returning to Iraq," migrant Haydar Kais Yasin told the
court Tuesday. "We are prepared to die here. If you send us back to Iraq it means the
slaughter of us and our families."

A Turkish Cypriot official told Reuters the administration would not immediately deport the
migrants. "We will take into account the interests of the refugees," he said.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com