Belarusian Interior Ministry does not see decline in refugee flow from Ukraine in 2015
MINSK. June 18 (Interfax) - An inflow of Ukrainian citizens seeking refugee status in Belarus amid the ongoing armed conflict in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions has not declined in 2015, head of the Belarusian Interior Ministry's naturalization and immigration department Alexei Begun has said.
"In 2014 Interior Ministry bodies processed about 800 applications of foreign citizens for refugee status, and 75% of those applications were filed by Ukrainian nationals. The inflow has not reduced in 2015. More than 500 applications have been processed, and most of them were lodged by residents of southeastern Ukraine," Begun said at a press conference in Minsk on Thursday.
UNHCR Representative in the Republic of Belarus, Jean-Yves Bouchardy, added that approximately 100,000 Ukrainian citizens had come to Belarus for temporary stay since the beginning of the armed conflict in Ukraine.
He said 100,000 Ukrainian citizens who had come to Belarus in the past two years exceeded 1% of the population of the host republic.
Amongst countries bordering Ukraine, Belarus ranks second, after Russia, by number of Ukrainian citizens it has taken in, the UN officer said.
