I won't hide it, I'm scared': drone strike alerts Cyprus to its inadequate bomb shelters

"At 12.33pm on 2 March, Valentinos Pangalos was ordered to activate sirens at Paphos international airport in Cyprus. An emergency had been declared. A suspicious object thought to be a drone packed with explosives had been detected heading towards the facility. Barely 12 hours earlier, an Iranian-made, Shahed-type drone had smashed into a hangar at RAF Akrotiri, raising the alarm further."

"In 24 years of doing this job I'd never been asked to do anything like it, said Pangalos, among the longest-serving officers at the island's civil defence force. To receive such an order, so abruptly, was intense. But, he said, it was just the beginning."

"People have felt very scared. They've been panicking since the drone attack, said Pangalos, now forced to spend long nights and days in the force's shabby headquarters on the outskirts of Nicosia. Older Cypriots with memories of the invasion, and the traumatic displacement of refugees that followed, are among those most loudly voicing fears."

"This security crisis has exposed just how ill-prepared we are, she sighed. Behind her file-covered desk, the civil defence's chief officer, Maria Papa, concedes that the emergency caught Cypriot authorities off guard."

Cyprus experienced a major security crisis when Iranian-made drones targeted military and civilian infrastructure, including RAF Akrotiri and Paphos international airport. Civil defense officers were forced to evacuate the airport and manage widespread panic among residents. The incident revealed severe inadequacies in Cyprus's emergency response systems, with understaffed operations and limited refuge facilities. Older residents, traumatized by memories of the 1974 Turkish invasion, expressed heightened anxiety. Civil defense officials acknowledged being caught off guard and unprepared for such threats. The crisis represents the most significant security challenge for the island since 1974, with ongoing concerns about potential attacks from Lebanon and Iran.

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