Moldova’s neighbor Ukraine has been at war with the Russian Federation for 14 days. Meanwhile, the Republic of Moldova has had to cope with an enormous, unprecedented wave of Ukrainian refugees and needed a number of qualities therefore. These qualities were discussed by the participants in IPN’s public debate “Refugees: Ukrainian exam for Moldovan society’s resilience”.
The standing expert of IPN’s project Igor Boțan said there are two dimensions in the current situation – humanitarian and legal. As regards the international legal status, there is the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951, which is a fundamental international law document concerning refugees. The Republic of Moldova joined this Convention and its protocol of 1967 by the ratification law of November 23, 2001. The Convention bans the expulsion or forced return of persons who have the status of refugee and defines the way in which the refugees should be treated. It also contains provisions about the identity documents for refugees and obliges the state to cooperate with the UN Refugee Agency.
The national framework of the Republic of Moldova is rather well developed and includes the law on the legal status of foreigners and stateless persons, the law on asylum in the Republic of Moldova, the law on the integration of foreigners in the Republic of Moldova, the law on entrance and exist of the Republic of Moldova, the law on labor migration. Among the main institutions that deal with the problems of refugees is UNHCR at international level, while in Moldova the refugee issue is within the remit of the Ministry of the Interior’s Bureau for Migration and Asylum that now provides logistic support to refugee centers.
Minister of Labor and Social Protection Marcel Spatari said Moldova braced for a flow of Ukrainian refugees, but was unable as a state to cope with over 100,000 refugees during two weeks. It had to build this capacity on the way and succeeded with the support of all the volunteers, the LPAs, the Government and others. There are now overt 107,000 refugees in Moldova. The inflow during the past few days was about 30,000 refugees a day, but a green corridor was created for those who aim to continue their way to the EU. For example, of the over 30,000 people who entered Moldova last Sunday, about 25,000 left the country through frontier posts with Romania. Over 5,000 refugees stopped in Moldova. Many of them are housed by families. The placement and hotspot centers accommodate about 10,000 people. Nine in ten refugees live with families and this means pressure on the population too. The authorities are now discussing with UNHCR a mechanism for subsidizing the families housing refugees. They did so in Greece, but this is not an international practice. In principle, UNHCR agreed and technical details are now being considered as this is assistance from international funds, not from the state budget.
The authorities are also considering broadening the definition of “refugee” so that this covers not only those who will seek asylum, but also those who will be identified as Ukrainian refugees and these will be offered indemnities. There are now about 7,000 places for refugees in accredited centers and approximately 7,000 places in hotpots centers all over Moldova. These provide accommodation, food, access to hygiene services. The goal is to make sure that the people who will stay in Moldova longer enjoy possibilities of integrating, of finding a job without a work permit, while the children of refugees will be integrated into schools. Moldova banks a lot on the foreign partners’ support and on local donations into the account opened by the Ministry of Finance, where over 12 million lei has been collected so far. Other countries will also offer assistance in overcoming the crisis, stated the minister.
Activist Anderi Lutenco, a member of the group of volunteers “Moldova for Peace”, said the volunteers aim not to replace the services offered by the state, but to supplement the services where the state does not manage to offer these. The volunteers will later have less work to do, while the workload of the state will grow. “The state started to do things that were earlier done by volunteers and it copes better and better. On the very first days, the volunteers were invited by the state to have a dialogue and to ensure coordination that has been actually ensured since the first day. The volunteers daily discuss with MPs and ministers with whom they coordinate different subjects. Communication is at an appropriate level,” stated the activist.
“Surely, there were experienced communication problems and cooperation attempts that failed, but this is normal when things change very quickly,” said Andrei Lutenco, noting there is openness and cooperation has improved and the volunteers are heard and they also hear others.
Ukrainian journalist Marianna Prysiazhniuk , special correspondent of Glavcom Agency in Romania and the Republic of Moldova and fact checker of StopFake Project, said the flow of refugees is now enormous for Moldova and its population, but this is not enormous for Ukraine given that Ukraine has a population of over 40 million and only about 2 million of Ukrainians so far found refuge in other countries, including Moldova, according to UN data.
The journalist noted that the Ukrainians do not aim to leave their country. They stay and resist, but the mothers need to protect their children from war and the people flee the country to find safety. Most of the Ukrainians remain in Ukraine.
The public debate titled “Refugees: Ukrainian exam for Moldovan society’s resilience” was the 227th installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is implemented with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
