From the end of April 2014 nearly 3 million of people have left the zone of conflict on the East of Ukraine. Nearly 1 million of people have found the asylum in the neighbor countries and from 1.5 to 2 million of people were forced to remove in the safe regions of Ukraine. Such scale of the migration Europe hasn’t known yet.
First wave was from the April 2014 to the beginning of June 2014, when people left captured by fighters territories, predominantly, because of political motives. There were persecutions or unwillingness to tolerate with lawlessness and arbitrariness of an armed minority. Such people are of 100 to 300 thousands.
The second one is the most numerous wave. It longed from June till September 2014 in the period of the most intensive warfare. This people have run away from war and its circumstances. According to the data of public organizations 2 million of people left the zone of conflict at this period.
The third wave of migration has been continuing up to now. The reasons of it is economic. To leave own houses make people poverty, lack of money and ruin. This wave is the less intense and it followed by back migration. Dozen of thousands of people, who couldn’t settle on new places, are coming back on the occupied territories.
The IDPs’ situation stays hard. This people lost everything: property, housing, social connections and normal life. Some of them lost the relatives and ownhealth. Wherein, they can’t wait for the tangible assistance from Ukrainian Government. Only 100 thousands of people, less than 5% from full number of needed, were provided with housing by state structures. The Government didn’t organize the leaving of people from the conflict zone, also, ignore needs of evacuation of disabled, patients in psychiatric hospitals and boarding schools, geriatric institutions, orphanages and boarding schools, convicts and prisoners.
Bureaucratic procedures didn’t count special situation of IDPs and make some of service impossible for them. People, gone out in the safe regions and didn’t get the official IDP-status, are deprived of possibility to get pensions and social payments. Therefore, the possibility to get IDP-status is not available due to legal conflicts, which authority doesn’t hurry up to solve for the number of people.
The amount of monthly aid only 6 months available for IDPs is equal 17 EU. But to rent a housing the sum exceed the amount of this allowance is required. According to the results of the social researches, every second IDP had a need to change housing two or more times.
The treatment of society becomes more and more negative to IDPs. The stereotypes about ungrateful and lazy residents of Donbass, who fueled the conflict on the East of the country and then remove and become the freeloaders in other regions, began to form after the submission of a number of media. Unfortunately, well-known politicians and representatives of the Government allow to themselves the public statements, stronging these stereotypes. IDPs from conflict zone also experience discriminatory attitudes in attempts to employ or to rent a housing.
A lot of employees don’t recruit inhabitants of the Eastern regions and adverts about rent-housing often have ban for migrants. Accepted electoral law in summer 2015 has deprived IDPs to vote on the elections in the local councils. 1.5 million of people could not delegate their representatives into local authority and a lot of them will stay to live in the communities forever.
The payments to suffered from death of relatives, losing health of property as a result of warfare are not provided for by the legislation. And parliament majority has still blocked such bill initiatives.
IDPs experienced shock from the losing of normal life, a lot of them have PTSD, because of poor living conditions and the inability to realize themselves in new places of residence. Big number of these people needs psychologist’s help, but there is still no state strategy of providing such a help. Moreover, a lot of people have difficulties in getting of medical aid. Need of it harshly increased, because of shock experience.
A number of public activists consider that absence of real help alike state policy to force migrants to come back in the places of their permanent residence. And such a policy brings its results. Nearly 200 thousand of people have been forced to come back into the frontline zone and on occupied territories, in spite of the threat to life and arbitrariness and injustice prevailing there.