Jean-Yves Bouchardy, the representative of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Belarus, made an official visit to the Belarusian city of Hrodna.
The top official visited a number of institutions, met with migrants from Ukraine and answered reporters’ questions.
At the moment, in Hrodna region there are around 5,000 Ukrainian citizens who left their homeland due to the military confrontation in the east. However, none of them have been granted refugee status. As explained to reporters, he case is that most Ukrainians do not seek such status and apply for temporary protection.
In total, in the course of the conflict in Ukraine Belarus have accepted about 160,000 internally displaced persons, mainly from Donetsk and Luhansk regions. It has been a serious challenge for the country, because such a great number of people had come within a short period of time, Bouchardy said.
The UN representative promised that he would raise the issue of employment of persons at a meeting with the regional union of employers. Sometimes, as it turned out, the Belarusian employers do not want to experience with refugees, mainly because they do not know whether they have a right to do it.
When compared to the European Union, Belarus is not a very attractive country for refugees from Syria due to its difficult economic situation, Bouchardy noted.
