Mediterranean countries on major migrant routes into Europe expect over 150,000 arrivals this year as food shortages caused by the invasion of Ukraine threaten a new migration wave from Africa and the Middle East.

“This year the frontline member states are expected, as we have discussed between us, to receive more than 150,000 migrants,” Cyprus Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said on Saturday after a meeting with fellow ministers of the so-called MED5 group in Venice.

Some 36,400 asylum seekers and migrants have already landed in Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Malta this year, after 123,318 arrivals in 2021, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

Overall numbers, however, remain significantly below those of 2015, when over 1 million migrants reached the five countries to flee poverty and conflict across Africa and the Middle East.

A shortage of wheat and other grains could affect 1.4 billion people, United Nations crisis coordinator Amin Awad said on Friday, adding more negotiations were needed to unblock the ports in Ukraine to avoid famine and mass migration around the world.

Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat supplies, while Russia is also a key fertilizer exporter and Ukraine a major supplier of corn and sunflower oil.

“If wheat remains blocked in the Black Sea ports, we must expect a greater (migrant) flow,” Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese told SkyTG24 on Friday. “We are concerned, as are all frontline countries.”

Source: https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/mediterranean-countries-expect-over-150000-migrants-2022

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The Mediterranean country was the frontline of Europe’s migration crisis in 2015 and 2016 when a million refugees fleeing war and poverty from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan arrived, mainly via Turkey.

The number of arrivals had fallen sharply since then, but in recent weeks, Greek authorities said they had stopped a significant number of people from entering.

About a dozen vessels with hundreds of migrants on board have attempted unsuccessfully to cross from Turkey’s coast to the Greek islands in the past 48 hours, according to police data. On Tuesday, the coast guard said more than 590 people had tried to cross into the country by sea within a few hours.

“We won’t allow anyone to enter Greece illegally either from Evros or through the islands. Let everyone realize this,” Civil Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos said on the Greek ANT1 TV channel.

Theodorikakos was speaking a day after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused the Greek prime minister of trying to block sales of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey during a visit to the United States. “He no longer exists for me,” Erdogan said.

Greece and Turkey, NATO allies and historic rivals, have long been at odds over migrant issues and competing territorial claims in the eastern Mediterranean.

About 11,000 migrants entered Greece through the Greek-Turkish land border in the region of Evros or through the Aegean islands in the first four months of the year, 25% higher than a year ago, according to government data.

Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas Editing by Bernadette Baum

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/greece-says-it-wont-allow-illegal-entry-migrants-by-land-or-sea-2022-05-24/

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Speaking by video link at the inauguration of new cinder block homes in northern Syria intended for returning refugees who had been living in Turkey, Erdogan said that in addition to the tens of thousands already built, Turkey would construct enough new buildings to house 1 million more refugees.

But it is not clear that many Syrians will take him up on the offer.

The program, he said, was an extension of Turkey’s initial welcome of millions of Syrians fleeing the war. Turkey is the host of more Syrian refugees, by far, than any other country.

“We didn’t just open our doors to save the lives and the honor of the oppressed,” Erdogan said. “But we made, and are making, every effort for them to return to their homes.”

Erdogan’s announcement Tuesday came amid a grave economic crisis that has hit the wallets of many Turks and fueled widespread anger toward the large number of people displaced from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere who now live in Turkey.

As the anger has grown, Turkish social media has lit up with furious posts about foreigners flying their flags in Turkish cities, enjoying themselves while Turks struggle to make ends meet and changing the cultural fabric of Turkish communities.

“In the beginning, refugees from Syria were considered to be temporary, as guests, and Turkish citizens were in solidarity,” said Murat Erdogan — no relation to the president — a fellow of the Center for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Studies, and the director of a migration research center at Ankara University. “But I can say Turkish citizens don’t want to share their future with Syrians. They are very clearly bothered and really want them to go back.”

In recent years, calls to send Syrian refugees home have grown and been picked up by leaders across a growing swath of the political spectrum.

Since the civil war in Syria began in 2011, more than 5.7 million Syrians have sought refuge abroad, according to the United Nations, and about 3.7 million ended up in Turkey, whose long border with Syria for many years was easy to cross.

Turkey’s economy was strong when the fighting was at its worst, the government in Ankara was sympathetic to the refugees’ plight, and the European Union paid billions of dollars to Turkey to help shelter migrants, in return for President Erdogan stemming the flow of them into the bloc.

But as the war settled into a stalemate and Turkey’s economy flagged, the government firmed up its southern border and launched a policy aimed at encouraging Syrians to go home.

Turkey’s own interventions in the war have made it the de facto overseer of a long strip of territory inside Syria and along the Turkish border, and in recent years, Erdogan’s government has fostered construction projects there aimed at providing homes for Syrian refugees in their own country.

Erdogan’s announcement Tuesday provided an update on those efforts and expanded their scope. More than 57,000 out of 77,000 planned homes in Idlib province in Syria’s northwest have been completed and now house 50,000 families, he said.

In the future, that number will grow to 100,000 homes, and a new project will be started, he said, to build enough homes for an additional 1 million Syrian refugees to move to other parts of northern Syria where Turkey holds sway.

In addition to homes, the project will provide schools, hospitals and “all the needs of daily life and self-sufficient economic infrastructure, from agriculture to industry,” Erdogan said.

It is unclear how many refugees have returned to Syria. Turkey says 500,000 have gone back since 2016. A spokesperson for the U.N. refugee agency said it had recorded about 130,000 voluntary returns in the same period, but that not all returns had been recorded.

Fighting in Syria has died down since 2019, but the total number of Syrian refugees abroad has not changed significantly, the U.N. figures show.

While large parts of Syria remain outside of President Bashar Assad’s control, he has effectively quashed all threats to his rule and has begun restoring diplomatic ties with some of his Arab neighbors.

But years of violence and extensive sanctions on Assad’s government have destroyed the economy, leaving refugees little to go home to. Many of them fear arrest by Assad’s security service or simply lack the money to rebuild their lives inside the country, refugee experts say.

“Finding 1 million Syrians to voluntarily return doesn’t seem very realistic at all,” said Murat Erdogan, the refugee expert. “They don’t see a future in Syria, the war there has become chronic, they don’t trust Assad, Turkey is a better place, they set up a life here.”

“Erdogan, let go of these stories. Fugitives are still flooding in from the border,” Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, wrote on Twitter. “We have had enough of your lies.”

Over time, rising Turkish anger at the refugees could increase the pressure on them to leave.

On Tuesday, a nine-minute video was posted on YouTube called “The Silent Occupation” that depicted a dystopian future where Istanbul is dilapidated and crime-ridden, Turks are being pushed out of their neighborhoods by Arab real estate agents and a Turkish surgeon works as a janitor in a hospital where the Turkish language is banned.

An actor playing a news anchor explains that the changes started with the Syrian war and uncontrolled immigration.

The video was commissioned by Umit Ozdag, a far-right member of Parliament known for his strident anti-refugee rhetoric.

By Wednesday night, the video had been viewed more than 2.6 million times.

This story was originally published at nytimes.com. Read it here.

The Seattle Times does not append comment threads to stories from wire services such as the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post or Bloomberg News. Rather, we focus on discussions related to local stories by our own staff. You can read more about our community policies here.

Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/turkeys-plan-to-draw-refugees-back-to-syria-homes-for-1-million/

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Between two and three million third-country nationals (TCNs) settle annually in the EU to work or study while up to 200,000 people arrive in the 27-country bloc illegally, according to the Commission.

Yet Europe struggles with severe labour shortages which have been growing over the past decades and are expected to be exacerbated further as the population continues to trend older and as the bloc seeks to transform its economy to become greener and more digital.

According to an assessment commissioned by the European parliament and released in September 2021, “labour shortages are noted for high-skilled and low-skilled work”.

That’s partly because most of the valid permits emitted are done so for family reunification with less than one in five residence permits issued for work reasons.

Additionally, just 1.6 % of first-time residence permits issued in 2019 to third-country nationals were under the Blue Card Directive — an EU-wide scheme to attract highly-qualified workers

The sectors forecast to struggle the most in the future include health care, agriculture, forestry and fishery, and information and communications technology, according to a 2020 public consultation.

‘A solid way forward’
Ylva Johansson, the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, unveiled Brussels’ plans last week, stressing that “legal migration is essential to our economic recovery, the digital and green transition and to creating safe channels to Europe, while reducing irregular migration.”

“I am confident we are putting in place a solid way forward to attract new talent into the EU for today and tomorrow,” she added.

Under the commission’s proposals, non-EU citizens settling in the EU will be able to acquire the long-term resident status after five years in the bloc regardless of whether they move between member states or change employers when both scenarios currently reset the clock.

The plans also aim to facilitate the process of obtention of a long-term work and residence permit directly from prospective migrants’ countries of origin, reduce processing times and simplify family reunification.

Brussels wants to create a bloc-wide platform where non-EU nationals can upload their CV to help European companies look for people with the skills they need. The commission wants the platform to be up and running by summer 2023 although it hopes that a pilot initiative will be rolled out by this coming summer to facilitate the labour market integration of Ukrainian refugees.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which started on February 24, has upended migratory figures across the EU. More than 5.5 million people, mostly Ukrainian women and children, have now fled to safety in neighbouring countries and other EU member states.

Brussels has activated its Temporary Protection Scheme, granting Ukrainian refugees access to the labour market as well as healthcare and education for at least three years.

Most Ukrainian refugees hope for a quick resolution to the war that would enable them to return home as soon as possible but the longer Russia’s war drags on, the more likely it is that some will permanently settle in the EU.

EU bureaucracy, differences and discrimination
For Silvia Carta, Policy Analyst at the European Policy Centre (EPC) think tank, “the legal migration package has been awaited for long, and not only as a way to frame migration more positively, moving away from a securitized approach.”

“If anything, these proposals should have been presented earlier. However, we need to recognize that the commission has worked hard to also address the labour market inclusion of displaced Ukrainians.”

Still, she told Euronews, “these initiatives have the potential to help increasing legal migration” and provide “concrete opportunities for the admission and the labour market integration of non-EU nationals, strengthen their rights and prevent exploitation.”

She warned of a potential caveat: bureaucracy.

The proposals will first need to be negotiated between the parliament and the council and once adopted, the legislation may not be uniformly transposed across member states and/or lack visibility.

“All the previous legal migration instruments (legislative and non) suffered from major gaps in transposition and implementation at the member states level. For example, as for the Long-Term Residents Directive in its current form, member states continued issuing national permits granting a lower set of rights,” Carta explained.

“In addition, non-EU nationals often had little awareness of their rights, so this is an aspect that should be definitely improved. As for the Talent Pool, the Commission will also have to find ways to make it appealing to employers and to raise awareness about its existence. This will be extremely complex as it will be an EU-wide initiative, covering all member states,” she flagged.

Difficulty having their qualifications recognized in the EU as well as discrimination could also be hurdles to plug the skills gap.

According to the same parliament report, highly educated third-country nationals are more likely to work in low- or medium-skilled jobs than EU citizens (48 % versus 20 % in 2019).

“Male TCNs who entered the EU as asylum seekers are especially at risk of over-qualification, the fact that many TCNs end up doing jobs for which they are overqualified may be due to a number of barriers, the most critical ones being related to language skills and the limited recognition of professional credentials and experience, although legal restrictions and discrimination are also noteworthy,” the report states.

Finally, whether the proposals will also reduce illegal migration is also up in the air.

“I am skeptical that the Commission’s proposals will reduce illegal migration, at least in the short term. There will always be people who don’t neatly fit into a skill category but still want to migrate, or who are in the EU already but with an expiring visa and wish to stay but have no legal way to do so,” Luigi Scazzieri, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Reform (CER) told Euronews.

“Some of the Commission’s plans relate to building ‘talent partnerships’ with third countries. The idea is to offer legal migration routes to then secure co-operation from third countries in tackling legal migration. But I doubt that these schemes will be large enough in terms of numbers to make a real impact,” he said.

Source: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/05/04/eu-immigration-is-broken-brussels-is-unlikely-to-be-able-to-fix-it

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“This paper is very important. Don’t forget to bring it back to me.” These are the words that Isiaka is told as a young charity worker from the Kisa NGO waves a document in front of him and slips it into a plastic pouch. Isiaka nods as he readjusts his cap and starts to leave the office. At the door, he quickly turns around to pick up a large carton of orange juice he had left there.

“I mustn’t forget this. It is my only meal of the day,” he explains.

Each day, more and more people just like Isiaka come through the doors of the charity, which specializes in legal aid for asylum seekers. In recent years, Cyprus has become a key destination for thousands of migrants from Syria, Bangladesh, India, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

For the past two years, arrival numbers have increased considerably after hitting a low during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. According to official figures, nearly 14,000 asylum applications were registered in the country in 2021 — compared to 7,821 in 2019. Those figures could still even be “far exceeded in 2022,” chief of staff at the Ministry of Interior, Loizos Michael, says.

Michael adds that asylum seekers now represent a total of 5% of the island nation’s population, which compares to 1% or less in other European Union (EU) countries. Between January and March 2022 alone, 5,066 asylum applications have already been filed in Cyprus.

Elizabeth Kassinis, head of the Caritas migrant center in in the capital Nicosia, agrees that in the past three years, “the situation has changed. There are many more arrivals in Cyprus. Especially because of the regulations in Greece and the closure of the Balkan route.”

“The administration was not prepared for this, it is completely overwhelmed,” she adds.

‘Living hell’
The vast majority of refugees and migrants coming to Cyprus arrive through Turkey. After usually obtaining a student visa for Turkey, they take a flight to Ercan, which is a town in the Turkish-occupied northern part of the island. They then cross the Green Line, a UN-controlled buffer zone, to enter the internationally recognized southern part of the island, which is a member of the EU.

Then they have to spend a few weeks or even months spent at the Pournara reception center to get to lodge their application. Once that is done, they have to leave the camp. This is where asylum seeker say their ordeal begins — which many of the refer to as a “real hell.”

“The first problem is housing,” Kassinis explains, highlighting that when the asylum seekers leave Pournara, they have nowhere to go. The government in Cyprus does not provide accommodation for asylum seekers. There is only space for a few families and single women at the Kofinou reception center in southern Cyprus.

Some of them eventually manage to find some kind of roof over their heads by calling on members of the local communities to help them. But many others, like Isiaka, end up sleeping rough on an empty stomach.

“For the past few days, he has been returning to Pournara every night just in order to not spend the night alone. “I take the bus from Nicosia and go there for the night. I sleep on the ground, near the entrance of the camp, with other Africans. And then the next morning, I go back the other way,” he told InfoMigrants.

Six months ago, Isiaka left Nigeria’s central Kogi State to migrate to Cyprus with hopes of finding a better life away from persecution. Now, he walks the streets of the capital looking for a job all day long, without hope or much available to eat.

“I feel like I will never make it. When I apply for a job, they don’t even let me speak. They just say, ‘Leave, leave, leave!’ It’s because I’m black,” he says, adding that even animals are treated better that that.

‘I don’t eat often. I’m always thirsty’
In Cyprus, asylum seekers are allowed to work while their cases are being processed. But the criteria for obtaining a work permit are “very selective,” Elizabeth Kassinis explains.

“You have to be able to prove that you have an address. But that’s a catch-22 situation: you want a job to pay for housing, but they ask you to have housing to work.”

The only help they receive from the Cypriot government is monthly payment of €261 as an allowance. But faced with the exponential increase in applications in recent months, authorities are overwhelmed and seem to be slow in reacting.

Many asylum seekers have to wait months before receiving any cash. Each day, there are long queues of migrants waiting for their payment in front of the social services office in Nicosia. The office opens at 6 am, however, to be sure they manage to get in before it closes again at 2 pm, many migrants spend the night sleeping on the sidewalk in front.

Read more: Cyprus: ‘Miserable’ conditions for children in migrant camp

Christelle is one of many who camp out outside the office doors night after night. The 42-year-old Congolese national has not received any benefits since January because of the administrative backlog.

In constant survival mode
“Without government aid, I have no income, nothing, because it is impossible to find a job here. So I don’t eat very often, except for rolls which cost two euros. I am always thirsty, which is making me feel sick,” she told InfoMigrants.

“I am really in deep misery, I don’t even have enough to buy a sanitary napkin. Instead, I use toilet paper.”

Many asylum seekers in Cyprus face similar predicaments — for two, three or in some cases even four years while their asylum application is being processed. The government announced last year that it was working towards reducing the wait to 50 days — but to no end, thus far.

The Cypriot government has turned to the EU, looking for help to cope with the situation. First it requested permission to suspend asylum applications for a certain amount of time so it could catch up with the backlog. However, the European Commission refused this idea.

On February 21, Cyprus finally managed to sign a memorandum with the EU, guaranteeing support. The agreement will free up EU funds to expand capacity at the Pournara reception center and build new accommodation centers as well as to launch a recruitment drive to attract more immigration officials.

Read more: EU, Cyprus strike ‘milestone’ deal on asylum seekers

Heavy patrols along the Green Line
While this sounds like there will be improvements to migrant reception in Cyprus, the majority of direct measures taken in recent months by the Cypriot government tell a different story.

For the past year, the government has erected barbed wire fences at certain points along the 184-kilometer Green Line. Loizos Michael explains that the government decided that “it was time to deal with this zone.”

Further fortification are also planned there, including a monitoring system — developed in collaboration with Israel — which will be deployed starting August 2022. As part of the overall measure, cameras will also be installed along the border, while security forces will be added to patrol the Green Line.

Source: https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/40167/migrants-live-in-misery-as-cyprus-suffers-overwhelm-with-migrant-influx

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The number of refugees from Ukraine has surpassed 601,000 since the start of the war, according to Bankodi, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

The Chief Security Advisor stressed that the Hungarian government had sent aid worth €7.9 million to Transcarpathia as well as western Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the latter.

“Hungary helps by sending charitable aid, by accepting refugees, providing health care, transport, accommodation, and jobs as well as by organizing their journey further… but our priority is the security of Hungarians and do not want Hungary to be dragged into this war,” he pointed out, as reported by About Hungary.

Bankodi emphasized that the southern border is under migration pressure, adding that about 500-600 migrants attempt to reach Hungary in an unlawful way every day.

The Chief Security Advisor said that migration has picked up on the key routes, probably due to the end of winter and the abolishment of COVID-19 measures, such as entry rules and travel bans introduced by governments to contain the virus’ further spread.

Authorities in Hungary have continuously expressed their support for refugees from Ukraine. Recently Hungarian authorities stressed that they could welcome over 900,000 Ukrainian refugees who are fleeing the war.

Back then, Bakondi stressed that the surge in the number of Ukrainian refugees meant that there was an increase in the need for organizations to work together in this regard.

“Hungary must continue supporting Transcarpathia Hungarians because their region has seen a big influx of people from eastern Ukraine who have lost everything,” he stressed.

Besides, aid centres on the Hungary-Ukraine border are also prepared to accommodate the increased number of refugees who are fleeing the war, the Chief Security Advisor stressed.

European countries have opened their doors to a large number of Ukrainians due to the war in Ukraine, especially its neighboring countries.

In addition, as part of efforts to help Ukrainians, the Commission of the European Union previously stressed that it would activate the Temporary Protection Directive, which attempts to allow refugees to stay for at least one year in one country, and also have access to the education and labour market.

Recently, the EU Agency for Asylum (EUAA) stressed that more than 1.8 million Ukrainians who fled the war registered for Temporary Protection in EU countries so far.

At the same time, the EUAA revealed that 28,800 Ukrainians filed an application for International Protection.

Source: https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/about-10000-refugees-from-ukraine-arrive-in-hungary-every-day/

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His comments mark the publication of findings by the Economic and Social Research Institute, which used 2016 Census microdata to compare the housing situation of people born in Ireland with first-generation migrants.

The ESRI found that many migrants have a much higher risk of overcrowding and homelessness than Irish-born.

In 2016, 56% of all migrants were living in private rented housing, compared to 13% of Irish-born.

A total of 75% of Polish migrants – one of the largest migrant groups in Ireland – lived in private rented accommodation.

Around 8% of Irish-born individuals lived in overcrowded accommodation in 2016, which the ESRI has described as a “relatively low proportion when compared internationally”.

In contrast, almost 20% of migrants in Ireland lived in overcrowded accommodation.

There were high overcrowding rates among some non-EEA migrants, including migrants from the Middle East and North Africa (37%), Sub-Saharan and Other Africa (39%), South Asia (41%) and East Asia (37%).

Migrants who lived in Ireland longer were less likely to be renting or live in overcrowded accommodation.

The research found that for a substantial number of migrants who came in the period 2000 to 2009, private renting and overcrowding rates were still much higher than for Irish-born.

The Census data also showed that non-Irish nationals were over represented among homeless people in Ireland; non-Irish nationals comprised 11% of the total population. Non-Irish nationals made up 25% of persons in homelessness.

Lead author of the report, Dr Frances McGinnity, said addressing “major current challenges” in the Irish housing market would benefit migrants disproportionately in overcrowded accommodation and in homelessness.

“Addressing general tenants’ rights issues, such as security of tenure in the private rental market and protection from rising rents, will benefit all those in the private rented sector, including many migrants,” she said.

Mr. O’Gorman said access to suitable housing was “essential for successful integration” in the long term.

“Migrants are heavily concentrated in the private rental sector and face higher risks of overcrowding and homelessness. These findings demonstrate that we need to consider housing as an important part of integration policy,” he said.

Source: https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0411/1291578-migrant-report/

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In a statement on its website, the White House said the plan is part of a larger $1 billion humanitarian aid package to assist all those affected by “Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

The White House said while it expects most Ukrainians will choose to remain in Europe close to family and their homes, the refugees will be welcomed through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and other usual legal pathways. The statement says it is also looking to expand and develop new programs focusing on Ukrainians who have family members in the United States.

Refugee advocates welcomed the announcements but questioned the administration’s abilities to move refugee processing faster than its current pace.

Sunil Varghese, policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), said in a statement the Biden administration is right to respond to the crisis in Ukraine with “compassion” and “bold action,” and advocates await more information on the program.

“Unfortunately, refugee resettlement continues at a glacial pace, and significant investments and innovations are required to ensure the Biden administration’s intentions can be made reality. We look forward to receiving more details about the program to protect vulnerable Ukrainians and encourage the administration to issue a clear plan to fulfill its promise to rebuild the refugee admissions program as a whole,” he wrote.

The U.S. Refugee Admissions program was dramatically cut under the previous Trump administration, leaving fewer resources within the government and resettlement agencies to handle the significant increase of refugee applications and arrivals.

This August 17, 2021, image courtesy of Mohammad Ehsan Saadat shows Ehsan Saadat, a 33-year-old Afghan, who recently arrived in Canada, posing with his wife and his children in Toronto.

In 2021, the Biden administration raised the 2022 refugee cap to 125,000. Yet actual admissions continue to lag, and the White House has acknowledged the “goal will be hard to hit” despite Biden’s determination to rebuild the program and renew “America’s commitment to protect the most vulnerable, and to stand as a beacon of liberty and refuge to the world.”

Cars line up on the road to the Shehyni border crossing as people flee to Poland, after Russia launched a massive military operation against Ukraine, outside Mostyska, Ukraine, Feb. 27, 2022.

But Biden officials say the U.S. government is coordinating closely with the European Union on efforts to help refugees and provide humanitarian transfers and admissions to make sure they are complimentary.

The White House statement said the new humanitarian package will also include funding to ensure food security, shelter, clean water, medical supplies and other forms of assistance for those impacted by “Russia’s aggression.”

The statement says the package includes an additional $320 million in democracy and human rights funding to Ukraine and its neighbors.

The White House says since February 24, the United States has already provided more than $123 million to help Ukraine’s neighboring countries and the European Union receive and host the millions of refugees that have fled the country, with funding split among Poland, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, and the Slovak Republic.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.

Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/white-house-us-to-take-in-100-000-ukrainian-refugees/6499318.html

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Relief work in frontline states – Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Moldova – has mainly been shouldered by ordinary citizens volunteering to drive, cook or house refugees, with the help of non-governmental organisations and local authorities.

But with the war now in its third week and the number of refugees swelling, it is becoming difficult to provide sufficient help.

In Krakow, Poland’s second-largest city, one NGO described the situation at the train station as “tragic”.

“There is nowhere to direct the refugees. They are stressed and confused, all kinds of help is needed, and above all, premises,” tweeted Fundacja Brata Alberta, an NGO that in normal times helps individuals with mental disabilities.

In Hrubieszow, a Polish town on the Ukrainian border, Mayor Marta Majewska said she had spent all the town’s crisis reserve of 100,000 zlotys ($22,889), as well as 170,000 zlotys from the local province, to run a refugee reception centre.

“I am most worried about electricity bills,” she told Radio Zet. “The city cannot bear it at all.”

FILLING UP FAST

In Warsaw, the biggest temporary reception centre was about 70% full by Thursday. Refugees now make up over 10% of the Polish capital’s population, Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski said.

Close to 4,000 Ukrainian children are now attending school in Warsaw, he added, with city authorities setting up 76 “preparatory classes” in which they learn Polish.

Trzaskowski separately called for other nations to step in, urging airlifts and a global system to manage the influx.

“We’re getting overwhelmed… We cannot improvise anymore,” he told U.S. television network MSNBC. “We need relocation in Europe and we need relocation in the world.”

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday the United States would welcome those fleeing the conflict.

“We’re going to welcome Ukraine refugees with open arms if in fact they come all the way here,” he told a group of U.S. lawmakers. He gave no details.

In Przemysl, near Poland’s busiest border crossing and a transit hub for refugees, Vice-Mayor Boguslaw Swiezy said he was seeing a decline in the number of volunteers, some of whom are students, others people taking time off work.

The Polish government will start reimbursing local governments’ costs for handling refugees from next week, once a new law comes into force, the interior ministry said.

Romania’s capital Bucharest was turning a convention centre and indoor arena, Romexpo, into its biggest refugee shelter yet, while Hungary was studying whether to turn museums, sports arenas and public buildings in Budapest into shelters.

The Hungarian government is also providing subsidies to employers who take on refugees to help cover accommodation and travel costs. In the Czech Republic, Prague mayor Zdenek Hrib called for more government funds to help accommodate refugees.

‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT’

And the refugees just keep arriving.

Dasha, a 31-year-old psychotherapist from Kyiv, arrived on Friday at Medyka, Poland’s busiest border crossing with Ukraine, where temperatures overnight dropped to -9 degrees Celsius (15.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

She left Kyiv on the first day of the invasion and stayed in the western city of Lviv but has now left Ukraine on the advice of her husband, who is in the army reserve.

“It’s tough in Kyiv, they are encircling the city,” she told Reuters, with two little dogs on their leashes.

“I’m going to Wroclaw (in southwest Poland), I have some friends there,” she said before bursting into tears. “I don’t know what to do next.”

Inna, a 55-year old woman fleeing Dnipropetrovsk, said she had travelled 24 hours to reach Medyka.

“My town was bombed this morning… I just can’t talk, I am so overwhelmed,” she sobbed.

She did not know where she would spend Friday night.

The United Nations bases its relief plans on 4 million people fleeing abroad, but has said it may need to revise the number higher.

The Polish Border Guard said 1.5 million people had entered Poland from Ukraine since Russia began its invasion on Feb. 24.

Nearly 365,000 people have so far fled into Romania, 219,000 to Hungary and 176,000 to Slovakia, officials said. Nearly 200,000 have reached the Czech Republic, which does not share a border with Ukraine.

Others are reaching or are seen getting to German, Sweden and other countries in Western Europe.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a special military operation to disarm its neighbour and dislodge its “neo-Nazi” leaders. Kyiv and its Western allies say this is a baseless pretext to invade a country of 44 million people.

(Additional reporting by Mari Saito in Medyka, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk in Warsaw, Luiza Ilie in Bucharest, Robert Muller in Prague, Anita Komuves and Krisztina Than in Budapest, Jeff Mason in Washington; Writing by Gwladys Fouche, additional writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Gareth Jones and Angus MacSwan),

Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-11/eastern-europes-aid-effort-under-strain-as-ukraine-refugees-keep-arriving

The post Eastern Europe Under Strain as Ukraine Refugees Keep Coming first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Citywest conference centre is currently being used as a processing centre for refugees as the “one-stop-shop” facility at Dublin Airport is beginning to come under pressure with the number of refugees continuing to arrive from Ukraine.

Speaking at the centre, volunteer lead Tricia Nolan said her “real fear” was that Irish families taking in refugees “don’t know what they’re getting into”.

“We’ve already had people brought back here and that’s really tough, because then those refugees have to be sent on to new accommodation for the second time,” she said.

MS Nolan has worked in the same facility for over two years, when it was a Covid-19 testing and vaccination centre. For almost three weeks, she has been helping Ukrainian refugees find accommodation.

“This work is a lot more emotionally draining. The kids are resilient, but it’s the older people who get me,” she said.

“The first week I was only getting two hours sleep and waking up worrying that I might have sent someone on the wrong bus or something. I’m only starting to sleep now.”

One hundred temporary beds have been set up in the conference hall, where refugees awaiting accommodation sleep for a maximum of 24 hours, one official said.

Health conditions
There is a play area for children, and the HSE has set up a triage desk to assess refugees with health conditions who will need to be accommodated near hospitals. A HSE staff member said she had already come across several refugees with various types of cancers, kidney problems, and an ectopic pregnancy.

The majority of Ukrainians passing through come straight from Dublin Airport, where the Departments of Social Protection and Justice issue PPS numbers before sending them to Citywest to be assessed for accommodation.

Visiting the facility on Monday, Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman said the Government would be looking to secure Citywest for a “long period” of time.

“The cost will be significant and there are negotiations ongoing between the Government and the owners, but I think you’re getting value here.”

Other facilities such as Gormanston Camp may be used if options run out, the Minister said. Gormanston has been set up “as a contingency in case there’s overspill or a day with a particularly large surge of refugees arriving”, but it has not been used yet.

Gerard Hughes, principal officer at the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, has been drafted to work in Citywest. There were “some nights when all beds were used up” and people had to “put the spare mattresses on the floor” but equally there had been quieter nights where only 15-20 beds were taken, he said.

On Monday afternoon, about 50 refugees wait in the centre for a coach to take them to their temporary homes around the country. However, most days there are between 400 and 600 refugees passing through.

Hotel accommodation is already beginning to dry up, a Department of Children spokesman said. Most contracts in hotels are three to six months long.

It’s “even harder” to find hotels for refugees who arrive with pets, as some hotels refuse to take them, but after fleeing war and travelling across the continent with their dogs, cats and other animals, their owners refuse to leave them behind.

“It’s organized chaos. It’s a big area so it’s good to have the space but equally it’s a conference centre so it’s very loud and busy. We need to start planning long term because this could go on for months and months,” Mr. Hughes said.

Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/some-irish-families-unable-to-cope-with-housing-ukrainian-refugees-1.4844355

The post Some Irish families ‘unable to cope’ with housing Ukrainian refugees first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.