WUNRN
UKRAINE WOMEN & DISPLACEMENT DISRUPTED LIVES FROM CONFLICTS BITTER WINTER LOOMS
Winter is setting in in eastern Ukraine. Here
a woman cries as she stands near her ruined home in Stepanivka, a
rebel-controlled village in Donetsk region .
People displaced by fighting in Eastern
Ukraine wait to enter an abandoned building site in Kiev
IOM International Organization for Migration
UKRAINE SERIOUSLY HIGH NUMBERS OF PEOPLE INTERNALLY
DISPLACED IN UKRAINE FACE BITTER WINTER WOMEN & CHILDREN
Nov-21-2014
- Ukraine - The total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs)
from Crimea and Donbas in Eastern Ukraine has now exceeded 460,000, according
to Ukraines State Emergency Service.
Of these, some
160,000 have registered with the authorities, according to the Ministry of
Social Policy. As winter sets in, the conflict, in which over 4,000 people have
died and over 9,000 have been wounded, shows no sign of abating.
As of
mid-November, IOM has assisted almost 6,000 vulnerable IDPs 80 per cent of
them women and children in 13 regions hosting over 65 per cent of the
displaced population.
The operation,
which has involved the distribution of relief items including warm clothes and
shoes, blankets, household and hygiene items, medicine, school supplies and
school uniforms, has been funded by the US, Norway, Switzerland and the United
Nations Central Emergency Response Fund.
Targeted regions
include Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi,
Ivano-Frankivsk, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Ternopil, Lviv and Kyiv.
IOM will further expand its operations in the weeks to come, targeting
additional regions, and scale up its direct assistance to IDPs as more and more
vulnerable people are in need of support before temperatures are dropping
further.
IOM also has
been providing IDPs with psycho-social and legal support through its
country-wide network of NGO partners and in close cooperation with the
government and UN partners.
In addition to
helping the government to meet the needs of IDPs, IOM Ukraine also provides
technical assistance in the areas of counter trafficking, migration management
and migrant-inclusive health practices and policies.
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UNHCR UN Refugee Agency
http://www.unhcr.org/544a28e69.html
Ukraine Displacement Worsening as Winter Looms
24 October 2014 - With the crisis in Ukraine entering its first
winter, UNHCR is racing to help some of the most vulnerable displaced people
cope with expected harsh winter conditions.
Ongoing fighting in the east, and the resulting breakdown of
basic services, continues to drive more people from their homes. The need for
humanitarian aid is increasing particularly around Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, and
in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzia regions. Estimates as of yesterday
(Thursday 23 October) are that Ukraine's internally displaced population has
risen to 430,000 people, some 170,000 more than at the start of September.
Some 95 per cent of the displaced are from eastern Ukraine, and
are concentrated in Donetsk and Kharkiv, as well as in Kyiv and other cities.
In all of these areas, UNHCR has been distributing emergency humanitarian
assistance targeting the most vulnerable. We are planning to distribute
additional winter clothes and blankets over the coming weeks, as well as
providing 400,000 square metres of reinforced tarpaulin sheets for roof repairs
in the east of Ukraine.
While the majority of the displaced people are staying in rented
accommodation or with family and friends, an estimated 14,000 to 18,700 people
are currently living in collective centres. With the onset of winter, one of
the urgent priorities is to make sure that these centres are weather-proofed
and that warm blankets and winter clothes are being provided for those in greatest
need. UNHCR plans to refurbish forty collective centres in major arrival areas.
Cash assistance programmes amounting to some US$250,000 have
been established in cooperation with the local authorities to support highly
vulnerable individuals, many of whom have not received pensions or welfare
payments due to the conflict. So far, some 1,600 people in the Kyiv, Lviv and
Vinnytsia regions have benefited from this. The programme is being extended to
six other parts of Ukraine.
In the past two weeks, Ukraine has taken important steps to
protect and assist displaced people with new government resolutions on
registration and assistance. Some 16,000 families have been registered in the
last week. UNHCR looks forward to the establishment of a central agency and
full and timely registration of the displaced over the coming weeks.
On Monday, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a law on the rights
and freedoms of internally displaced people. The law, which was developed with
support from UNHCR and civil society, extends a specific set of rights to
internally displaced people, providing protection against discrimination,
forcible return and assistance in any voluntary returns. The law also
simplifies access to different social and economic service
UNHCR hopes that rapid implementation of this legislation will
help displaced people in finding safe shelter, jobs and proper access to
services. The law obliges the government to start developing a policy on
integration of internally displaced people, which is expected to lead to better
planning for those in need.
Meanwhile, in the Russian Federation, over 207,000 Ukrainians
have applied for refugee status or temporary asylum since the beginning of this
year, according to the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation. In
addition, some 180,000 Ukrainians have applied for other forms of legal stay in
Russia, such as temporary or permanent residence permits. A larger number of
Ukrainians are arriving in Russia under the visa-free regime between the two
countries.
Most Ukrainians arriving in Russia stay with relatives, friends
or find private accommodation either in a host family or rent their own
apartments. The Russian authorities have adopted several regulations to
facilitate the temporary stay of Ukrainians arriving in their territory and
UNHCR hopes that equal treatment will be afforded to refugees from other
countries too.
As of the end of September, over 6,600 Ukrainians had requested
asylum in European Union countries, compared with 903 applications during the
whole of 2013. The EU country receiving the largest number of Ukrainian asylum
seekers has been Poland (1,632), followed by Sweden (841). In addition, 581
Ukrainians have sought asylum this year in Belarus.
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