Monthly Archive for August, 2014

Ukrainian Refugees

иимссмчмссмчсAccording to UNHCR 155.800 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were registered in Ukraine on the 13th of August 2014. It can be assumed that the actual number is probably much higher, because a lot of IDPs do not register officially. The civil society, as well as state bodies are are taking care of their needs. Read more on their support in this UNHCR report. However, more and more voices accuse them for having fled instead of fighting against the separatists, what has now to be done by soldiers, border guards and volunteers from Western and Central Ukraine. Furthermore, thousands of refugees left the embattled areas to Russia. UNHCR estimates that more than 150.000 people have fled to Russia. But their number is difficult to estimate as well, as a lot of them do not register (Ukrainian citizens don’t need a visa for entering Russia) and there have always been a lot of working migrants.

The Kiew post has recently published three stories on Ukrainian refugees:

Journalist from the UK visited Ukraine in July

The European Union’s eastern frontier cuts through Selmentsi, a village on the border of Slovakia and Ukraine. On the Ukrainian side, the road leading to the checkpoint is lined with shops selling fake designer clothes. The villagers serving in the shops slip easily between Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian and Slovakian, a legacy of the region’s contested history. Once part of the Habsburg Empire, this section of the Carpathian mountains was taken by the Soviet Union in 1945. A glance at a map shows why Stalin coveted it: across a span of just a few hundred kilometres, Transcarpathia borders Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland which is very convenient for an empire looking to keep its satellite states in check…

Read the full story here.

Recently published by BMPU: Report on Corruption in the Immigration, Detention and Asylum System of Ukraine

Published 2011 by BMPU: Access to Protection Denied – Refoulement of Refugees and Minors on the Eastern Borders of the EU

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