The Limassol seaside strip, which is home to numerous migrant-owned businesses, was filled with hushed rumors of the impending rampage hours before the masked men with Cypriot flags and molotov cocktails arrived.
A Vietnamese vendor swiftly dismantled their street displays of greens and sugar cane stalks as the Egyptian restaurant owners hastened to bring their water pipes indoors.
However, they were unable to conceal the unique cultural backgrounds that each of them has proudly embraced while establishing their livelihoods on the Mediterranean island.
Mohammed el-Basaraty, a 38-year-old restaurateur from Egypt, recalled: “I was standing with a neighbor and she advised me to leave… “because if they see you, a foreigner, they would beat you,” she said.
As the guys broke the windows of the company he had founded with his life money, he hid away at the back of the restaurant.
“We began to hear the sound of glass breaking… After that I smelled the smell of smoke and fire.”
When compared to its population, Cyprus had the greatest proportion of first-time asylum seekers in the European Union last year, which coincided with the attack early this month.
Experts attribute the rise in xenophobia in Cypriot politics and media to the disinformation campaign and poor management of the massive number of immigrants trying to reach Europe.
Days before, after years of tension with the hundreds of primarily Syrian residents of a condemned apartment complex, locals near the western city of Paphos had launched a similar attack on migrants.
Videos posted to social media showed men marching through the streets while yelling “out, out” while carrying crowbars and sticks. Twelve Syrians were among the twenty-one people that were detained.
Police had earlier raided the building to clear it of its residents after allegations of electricity theft spread on social media.
Despite that precedent, as well as a heavy police presence ahead of the Limassol protest, residents say little was done to intervene.
“They were more than 600 people,” said Adel Hassan, 76, a local resident. “How many did the police arrest? Just 13?”
Police did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment, but police chief Stelios Papatheodorou acknowledged before parliament that the response was “slow”.
