Europe gives cold reception to Ukraine migrants: Report
The Ukrainian migrants who flee the conflict in their home country’s eastern regions are given a cold reception in other European states, a report says.
The New York Times reported Saturday that several European countries, including Poland, Germany and Italy, have “overwhelmingly rejected” or “delayed processing” the applications of asylum seekers from Ukraine.
Unwilling to open their borders to a “torrent of job-hungry immigrants,” the European governments argue the Ukrainian asylum seekers can be relocated to the western parts of their own country, which are untouched by the deadly clashes between Kiev’s army and pro-Russia forces, the report said.
Ukraine faces an ongoing conflict in its eastern Lugansk and Donetsk region. The Ukrainian military launched an offensive in the two mainly Russian-speaking regions in 2014. Nearly 7,000 civilians have so far lost their lives in the violence there.
Referring to the Ukrainian migransts, Marta Jaroszewicz, the migration project coordinator at the Center for Eastern Studies in Poland’s capital, Warsaw, said, “The reason they are rejected is very obvious,” adding, “Ukraine is a huge country. Only part of the territory is insecure, so they can relocate internally.”
Europe, which is struggling to recover from the global financial collapse in 2008, has already seen an unprecedented influx of migrants from Africa, Middle East and other conflict-stricken countries into its borders.
“Over the last 10 or 20 years, Ukrainians were essentially not present in the asylum numbers,” the Times quoted Robert K. Visser, the executive director of the European Asylum Support Office, as saying. “That changed substantially and quite suddenly in March of last year.”
In 2013, 1,060 Ukrainian nationals sought asylum in the European Union. However, after the escalation of conflict in eastern Ukarine, the figure soared to 14,040.
“We have seen that large numbers are going to Poland, but also to Germany, Italy, France, Sweden and Spain, very much covering Europe as a whole,” Visser added.
Meanwhile, the European Commission (EC) plans to make the entire 28-nation bloc share the burden of housing migrants and help the frontline states such as Italy, Greece and Malta.
However, some countries, including Britain, have refused to take part in the EU’s migrant resettlement plan.
YH/MKA/HJL
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