According to police, clashes appeared to have broken out between the two groups in the reception centre.
Police fired tear gas after clashes broke out and a fire was lit at an overcrowded migrant reception center in Cyprus, according to police and witnesses.
At least one person needed hospital treatment after being injured Friday at the Pournaras reception facility, about 22 kilometers (14 miles) west of the capital Nicosia.
People threw stones and objects at each other, causing many to flee in panic, and firefighters rushed in to put out the flames and billowing smoke into the sky. Tensions then “calmed down”, one policeman said.
Police said clashes appeared to have broken out between the two groups in the centre. The fires were extinguished by the fire brigade but sporadic clashes continued until early afternoon, police said.
A police spokesman said: “Several tents have burned… the situation has calmed down.
The Cyprus news agency Philenews reports that clashes have broken out between asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, two of the largest migrant groups in Cyprus.
The center is too crowded
Pournaras has accommodated more than 1,000 people as Cyprus struggles to cope with waves of asylum seekers from Syria and African countries.
Many travel to the southern part of the island, controlled by the internationally recognized government of the ethnically divided Republic of Cyprus, through a buffer zone separating it from the Turkish-controlled area.
Authorities in Nicosia last week said that this year alone, 17,000 people have entered their jurisdiction through irregular channels. There are 12,285 for the whole of 2021.
