About 86,000 Ukrainian refugees are currently staying in Moldova and most of them were accommodated by host families. Only 5,000 refugees are now in placement centers in Moldova. The host families will be offered by 3,500 lei in assistance, said Minister of Labor and Social Protection Marcel Spatari.

He noted that over 10,000 families housing Ukrainian refugees have registered to benefit from assistance. Marcel Spatari assured that the 3,500 lei in assistance is provided not from the state budget, but from the donations made by the international community.

“Approximately 10,000 families applied for such aid. The process is not yet over. The submissions process is over, while the process of distributing these allowances goes on. The allowances given to refugees and to host communities are provided from foreign funds, not from the state budget or from the taxes paid by our citizens. This is international support,” Marcel Spatari stated in a program on the public TV channel.

According to him, a part of the refugees who chose to stay in the Republic of Moldova when the war broke out either went to other European states or returned to Ukraine. The inflow of refugees is smaller, but there are yet many Ukrainian children in Moldova, who need to be enrolled at school or kindergarten.

“Ninety refugee placement centers are active and 20 of them could be closed as there are not many refugees there. A total of 5,000 refugees were accommodated at such centers. Most of the refugees are in host communities, not at placement centers. There are about 86,000 refugees in the Republic of Moldova at present. With the passing of time, the chances that these refugees will remain in our country and will integrate into society increase. Almost half of the refugees are children. There are many mothers with children. These children need access to education, kindergarten, school. The oldest ones study online. An area was laid out at Moldexpo for having online lessons in the Ukrainian language. Another over 2,000 children were admitted to our educational institutions,” said the minister.

According to Marcel Spatari, 499 lots of humanitarian aid have been received by Moldova since the start of the refugee crisis. Out of these, 244 lots were intended for nongovernmental organizations, 103 lots - for religious communities, while 46 lots - for local public authorities.