A year after the start of the Russian invasion, 77% of Ukrainian refugees in Europe and 79% of internally displaced Ukrainians say they hope to return home one day, two surveys by the UN High Commission show. for Refugees (UNHCR). But only 12% of these Ukrainians believe they will be able to return to their homes in the next three months.
As the war between Russia and Ukraine drags on, a third of Ukrainians today are still far from the place they called home on the eve of February 24, 2022. According to UNHCR data, some 8 million Ukrainians are currently refugees in Europe and 5 million of their fellow citizens are displaced in other regions of Ukraine.
“The human suffering and the hardships that have been caused by the war are beyond comprehension”, declared Thursday Pascale Moreau, regional director of the High Commission for Europe, on the sidelines of the tabling of the two reports entitled “Lives on hold » (Lives on Hold).
These reports are based on a third round of surveys of thousands of Ukrainians uprooted by war. One of the reports focuses on the reality of people who have found refuge in Europe, while the other focuses on the situation of internally displaced Ukrainians.
Older Ukrainians from the west of the country, who have a close family member still in Ukraine or whose home has not been damaged are the most likely to plan to return to the war-torn country in the next three months.
Among the barriers to returning home most often cited by internally displaced people are, unsurprisingly, concerns about security. Access to adequate housing, water and electricity, health care and employment are also cited.
Respondents from areas that are partly or fully controlled by the Russian military—Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson—are less likely to plan to return home within the next three months. Families with children are also less likely to return home soon than families without children.
Among Ukrainian refugees in Europe, 5% say they do not want to return home or have lost hope of being able to return. This proportion rises to 7% among Ukrainian respondents who are internally displaced.
Improvements
From this prolonged uprooting, some improvements have nevertheless emerged. 45% of refugee respondents in Europe said they were staying in rented accommodation, compared to just 27% in the previous survey published by UNHCR last September. And the proportion of Ukrainian exiles receiving a salary from employment rose from 37% to 46% during the same period.
Among the recommendations that UNHCR makes in the reports are the need to adequately inform Ukrainians who have fled the country about the situation in Ukraine and to continue to provide them with the necessary support so that they can fully exercise their rights. . Although there have been improvements in the living conditions of Ukrainian refugees, the Office of the High Commissioner points out that “a significant portion are still unemployed and many who have found work are in low-skilled jobs and for the majority of refugees , their salary is not enough to cover most of their basic needs”.