Published October 23, 2021 at 06.12
Domestic. While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs helped the Swedish Migration Board to fly back deported criminals from Afghanistan, the same ministry left terminally ill Eva, 52, bedridden alone in an apartment in Cyprus. But now the island nation's authorities have made an exception and financed an ambulance flight for Eva to Sweden, reports Alpha News. Something that the Swedish government, however, refuses to confirm.
& nbsp; – We can not comment due to consular secrecy, says Buster Emitslöf at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Fria Tider.
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Eva Johansson Kallidou moved to Cyprus in 2010 and for several years ran a tattoo parlor with her husband Dimitris in the tourist resort of Famagusta.
In recent years, however, Eva, who was born with a chronic rheumatoid arthritis, has suffered from severe deteriorating health and during the autumn of 2021, her condition was so serious that she could not leave the bed herself. The situation therefore quickly became acute when her husband Dimitris died suddenly in a heart attack in mid-August and she was left alone without the opportunity to get out of bed.
“PLEASE help me, I'm desperate! the bed and can't even sit up “, Eva wrote in a last post on Facebook on 6 September. In the post, she asked for help packing clothes and belongings so she could leave the apartment at the end of the month, when she had also been evicted in connection with her husband's death.
“I have some boxes and bags to put them in. At all times of the day or night, there are no problems for me,” she explained in Swedish in a post that was spread among Swedes in Cyprus.
The local newspaper Farmagusta News visited Eva at the end of the same month and then she had received help from social authorities in Cyprus to cook. But before she turned there, she had lost weight to 27 kilos, the newspaper writes.
According to another local newspaper, the Cypriot Reporter, she was visited by social services staff three times a day, but her care needs could not be met in Cyprus. She therefore wanted to go home to Sweden where her mother could help her and there were other resources to get hospital care.
But at the Swedish embassy in Nicosia, it became a nob, according to Farmagusta News, because Eva was discharged from Sweden during long time and therefore no longer covered by the Swedish social safety net. There can therefore be no question of any financial help with the journey home, was the message from the Swedish embassy, according to the local newspaper.
The Foreign Ministry's message came just a few weeks after the same ministry did a joint thing with the Armed Forces and the Swedish Migration Board and “evacuated” several convicted criminals from Afghanistan, despite the fact that they had neither Swedish citizenship nor a residence permit in Sweden. However, they each had a re-entry ban and they were therefore arrested at Arlanda, TV4 Nyheterna reported.
For Eva's part, it all worked out in the end, but only after the Cypriot media – in contrast to the Swedish – drew attention to her case. Journalist Christiana Aristotle's TV show “With love Christiana” broadcast several features about the Swedish woman's difficult situation and the news had a major impact on Cyprus, where angry TV viewers contacted members of parliament and government officials. The island nation's Ministry of Health then took up the matter and finally managed to get the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to agree that Sweden would receive Eva – through an ambulance flight that Cyprus pays for.
According to Alpha News, it was Cyprus' Ministry of Health, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that finally agreed on this solution, and at 11.30 on Tuesday, the ambulance plane took off for Sweden.
– I am so grateful that Cyprus pays for my flight back to Sweden so I can get help … without them I would have died, says Eva in an interview with “With love Christiana” which was broadcast in Cyprus on Tuesday.
In the segment, she promised to return to the Mediterranean country to visit her husband's grave as soon as she is healthy enough to move again. This feature also received a lot of attention on the island.
Fria Tider has sought Anders Hagelberg, Sweden's ambassador to Cyprus, without result. We have also asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with what legal support the government refuses to help Swedish citizens who are in need abroad, while foreign citizens who have been deported for serious crimes also receive consular assistance to get to Sweden. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refuses to answer our questions.
“We can not comment on individual cases due to consular secrecy. As for the information in the feature, we may refer to Cypriot authorities”, writes Buster Mirow Emitslöf, press communicator at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a written reply.
He also adds:
“In general, it can be said that according to the consular regulations, the Foreign Ministry's consular assignments include Swedish citizens and persons with residence permits who are If there are special reasons, Swedish citizens who are not resident in Sweden and another foreigner residing in Sweden may also be covered. “