Seven illegal immigrants from Iraq were injured in an apparent mine explosion early Friday morning when they tried to cross the U.N.-monitored buffer zone from the breakaway northern Cyprus to the government-controlled south, local media reported.
But a spokeswoman for the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Cyprus (UNFICYP) told Xinhua that they were still trying to confirm the incident, as they were not clear about the details yet.
All the injured were being treated in a hospital in the southern coastal city of Larnaca. One man was wounded seriously in the foot and a four-year-old boy in his face, local media quoted doctors as saying.
The Mediterranean island has been divided by a 180-km buffer zone for decades after the Turkish military intervened and occupied the north of the island following a coup by a group of Greek officers in 1974.
In 1983, the Turkish Cypriot authorities declared the establishment of the breakaway "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, " which is recognized only by Turkey. The Greek Cypriot south entered the European Union (EU) in May 2004.
Hundreds of illegal immigrants, mainly from the Middle East, cross the buffer zone every year to the EU territory in the south.
Both sides of the buffer zone have been heavily mined since then and an EU funded project has so far only cleared the area around the capital city of Nicosia.
Source: Xinhua
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