Ukraine's government says it is scrambling to help people who fled their homes and who need humanitarian assistance, but the needs are vast.
According to the Ministry of Social Policy, as of March, almost 1,123,670 Ukrainians from Russian-occupied Crimea and the eastern Donbas had been displaced within Ukraine.
Many have moved to other regions of Ukraine following Russia’s military invasion, while others have moved to Russia.
Some of them have moved to Kharkiv and to territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts controlled by Ukrainian forces, while some have moved to Ternopil, Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk.
But while the mass movement of internal migrants has slowed since the initial days of the invasion, the many legal complexities and problems surrounding internally displaced persons continue to mount and add to the terrible humanitarian toll already inflicted.
Migrant communities are highly vulnerable victims of crime, according to Tetyana Rudenko of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. “Criminality is a sphere which adjusts extremely quickly,” she says. “Obviously migrants fall within both the risk and targeted groups. When you are moving, you are taking your passport and cash with you.” This makes for easy targets.
There are also urgent humanitarian and legal issues involving displaced orphans and children without parental care. The plight of these children, according to Maryna Saienko, an attorney at Zakon Peremogy, urgently calls for a program to assist their transfer and rehabilitation.
However, rigorous legislative restrictions do not allow volunteers to evacuate these children. “In fact there is no mechanism ensuring that volunteers won’t be accused of kidnapping in such situation, which is absurd,” she says. “Even if volunteers take the risk, they lack available instruments to place such children in foster homes or healthcare institutions.”
More bureaucratic difficulties also create great strains for Ukrainian displaced persons. The receipt of pensions and disability benefits is impossible to obtain without the requisite entitling documents, which were left behind in war zones, Saienko says.
Zoya Zamikhovska of the Legal Alliance Company believes that the procedure for registering internally displaced people by the State Migration Service of Ukraine has to be improved. According to the Ministry of Social Policy, the International Organization for Migration has initiated projects to provide technical support for the introduction of a registration of internally displaced people.
Kafkaesque bureaucratic challenges face former residents of Crimea who are trying to recover deposits left in their local banks. Before deposits can be returned, banks are requiring individuals to produce a certificate from the Deposit Guarantee Fund, which provides no such certification. They also require a certificate from the Russian Federal Migration Service confirming that a person has refused to accept Russian citizenship. The services provide no such certification.
“It is high time for NBU to render such claims illegal,” Zamikhovska says.
However, important initiatives have been taken to clear away regulations for the construction of emergency housing for displaced people, according to Natalia Dotsenko-Belous of Vasil Kisil & Partners.
At a session of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk promised to take an inventory of all construction projects for dormitories and health and rehabilitation centers that are already 80 percent complete to assist with the immediate shelter needs of war migrants. Similarly, a bill on deregulation, pending the president’s signature, gives local authorities the right to lift construction freezes (ones imposed due the insolvency of tenant builders) and to build.
Meanwhile, in addition to the lifting of regulations, mobile housing is being brought that can legally skirt many building regulatory issues. Germany’s GIZ, a development aid agency, has begun constructing mobile homes for migrants. “According to our experiences in other crises, mobile housing units are most flexible,” says Norbert Schwarzer of GIZ. “The ground preparation work is done quickly, and the units will be erected in a short time, and they are easily adapted to local requirements and climate situations.”
GIZ closely cooperates with the State Emergency Service. “The project is giving support for seven settlements in seven cities,” Schwarzer says. “A settlement includes up to 250 system modules. The modules have different functions – bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom.”
The German government invested as much as 19 million euros in the project, while these settlements may become homes for up to 4,600 people.
When the Social Policy Ministry began helping internally displaced people, it invited experts from the OSCE to join in its efforts. And the OSCE has helped in facilitating the mediation between the IDPs and local communities to prevent potential conflicts. “This creates a good prospect for stability and a quicker settlement,” says Andrii Dziubenko of OSCE.
Rudenko says that while it is important that numerous non-governmental organizations help migrants, these programs should be led by the government. “It is the state that has the primary responsibility to protect its people,” she says.
Along with legal, sheltering and employment issues, as well as psychological, internally displaced persons need comprehensive care – a case manager who will coordinate efforts to help a particular person or family, Rudenko believes. To administer this kind of coordinated effort, the Ministry of Social Policy and the OSCE have set up a joint project, Improvement of Ukraine’s Response to Migration Processes Caused by Conflict. The term of its implementation is June 2014 – December 2015, and the project is financed entirely by the OSCE.
“Last year short-term funding was provided by Germany in the amount of 100,000 euros, but that obviously was not enough to facilitate the whole project,” Rudenko says.
The Ministry of Social Policy advised the OSCE on where best to direct the money, and it advised that the rendering of social services at the regional level and the extensive training of socials workers were the priorities.
Natalia Yeremenko, head of social services for Luhansk Oblast’s Kreminsky district, has praised OSCE trainings on how to provide aid to war migrants.
