The British government has been accused of being “deceitful” and dodging its legal responsibilities to a group of refugees whose failing boats washed ashore in a British military zone on Cyprus late last year.

The Ministry of Defence has stated that the 114 people who came ashore are the responsibility of Cyprus and, according to the refugees, has said they will be sent to Lebanon, from where their boats set sail, if they do not seek asylum with Cypriot authorities.

However, human rights groups say Britain is shirking its legal responsibilities – fearful that the route could be seen as a “back door” to Britain – and coercing people into staying put while paying Cyprus to house and feed them.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said a 2003 UK-Cyprus memorandum made it clear that “asylum seekers arriving directly on to the SBA [sovereign base area] are the responsibility of the UK”.

Ibrahim Maarouf, a Palestinian English teacher who fled first from Syria and then from a refugee camp in Lebanon with his wife and two children, said he felt utter despair about his future. “We are being fed and we have a room with a common toilet we share with 15 families,” he told the Observer.

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“It’s very humiliating to be stuck here and the days are passing and no one will say anything to us. We are without hope. We had had enough of suffering, we wanted to go to Greece, and my aim was to go to Belgium to find work and a new life, but the boat couldn’t handle this trip, so we landed here by mistake.

“Cyprus is a poor country, with no work already for people here. We are told we have to apply for asylum here or be sent back. One sick woman was told she could see a doctor, but only if she first agreed that she would seek asylum in Cyprus.

“If I had died under Isis bombs, that was my fate. If I had died in Lebanon, that was my fate. But I would like a chance to have a life. I would ask David Cameron, ‘Don’t make a lesson of me’.”

The foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said in November that the situation had been resolved, as Cyprus had agreed to take the refugees, but that has been denied by lawyers working for the families.

Tessa Gregory of the firm Leigh Day, who is acting for several of the families and individuals involved, said there was a “clear breach” of British obligations towards the migrants, who had made land on what was technically British soil, and it was wrong to delegate their fate to Cyprus.

She added that she would be seeking a judicial review as soon as possible. “Since their arrival on British soil, the UK government has denied responsibility for the group and sought to outsource its obligations under international law to Cyprus,” she said. “After being detained and threatened with deportation, our clients have agreed under protest to have their asylum claims processed by the Cypriot authorities. But we maintain that they are the UK’s responsibility and that it is the UK who has to ensure their rights as refugees are secured and protected.

“The UK government cannot shirk these responsibilities, under the refugee convention, in the middle of the worst refugee crisis since world war two. “We believe such conduct is contrary to the letter and spirit of the convention and our clients will be seeking a judicial review of the government’s actions in January.”

Chai Patel, legal and policy director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: “It is shameful that asylum seekers fleeing persecution arriving on UK territory have not been treated in accordance with the refugee convention. Instead they have been left in awful limbo while being unlawfully threatened with deportation back to the persecution they fled. Officials are coercing them to move to a third country, Cyprus, which is being paid by the UK to temporarily house them and process their claims.

“This is an expensive, short-term solution designed to make it seem as if the refugee problem on the sovereign base territories has been dealt with. However, the UK remains legally responsible for their treatment in Cyprus and for finding durable and voluntary solutions for them. The government must explain what its long-term plan is to assist and protect those refugees who have arrived in the SBAs.”

A previous group of 67 mostly Kurdish and Iraqi refugees who arrived in the British base area in 1998 are still embroiled in a legal limbo and remain on the Cyprus base.