A 65-year-old woman was taken to hospital on Wednesday after a four-hour standoff with police in Limassol, where she threatened to blow up her home with gas canisters to prevent her eviction.
Authorities were alerted by the woman’s son after she locked herself inside her flat in the Agios Ioannis area and threatened to detonate gas canisters when court bailiffs arrived to enforce an eviction order.
The incident began when bailiffs visited the property in the morning to carry out the court-ordered eviction. The tenant refused to hand over the property and, according to her son, expressed an intention to harm herself.
Police deployed specialist negotiators to the scene, who first persuaded the woman to surrender the gas canisters. After roughly four hours of negotiations, they convinced her to go to hospital for assessment.
The bailiffs left the scene after consulting with Assistant Police Director Marinos Vassiliou. They will return to court to inform the judge about the incident and receive instructions on how to proceed with the eviction.
No injuries were reported, and the area returned to normal, with the road reopened to traffic.