Lviv receives over 200,000 refugees - mayor

KYIV. March 24 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Lviv has absorbed over 200,000 refugees from different parts of Ukraine, and the city and regional administrations are studying projects for building housing for the displaced persons in Lviv and the region and are helping these people to get employed, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy said.

"Lviv has become a large shelter for more than 200,000 Ukrainians these days," Sadovy said at a press conference in Lviv on Thursday.

The city is making efforts to help the refugees find jobs, Sadovy said. "Our goal today is not only to help [the displaced persons] to be here, but there's also the next step: we have opened a center offering consultations regarding employment," he said.

About a hundred people visit this center every day, Sadovy said. "We establish connections between them and our businesses. People wish to work and adapt to the new conditions," he said.

Head of the Lviv regional military administration Maksym Kozytsky said at the same press conference, "We have arranged for the delivery of humanitarian aid. At the present time, over 50,000 tonnes of cargo has been forwarded to Irpin, Bucha, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv, Kherson, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Zaporizhzhya, and Dnipro."

These shipments included foodstuffs, industrial products, and medicine, he said.

There are over 400,000 displaced persons in Ukraine now, he said.

"These are our people who need help. We are happy to see them here," he said.

Over 1.1 million Ukrainians have crossed into Poland in the Lviv region, Kozytsky said.

"We are doing our utmost for the Lviv region to be not only a humanitarian hub," he said.

Speaking about the possible construction of housing for the displaced persons, Kozytsky said there is a project by several international funds for building suburban communities.

Sadovy added to this, "We are sending a clear message to construction companies that people need housing not only for a temporary stay."

"We are allotting concrete plots of land for building suburban communities," he said.

Meanwhile, Luhansk regional military administration head Serhiy Haidai said that as many as 259 civilians were evacuated from Rubizhne and Kreminna in the Luhansk region on Thursday.

"Where possible, we collect people and bring them to trains by bus," Haidai wrote on Telegram.

Another 150 civilians were evacuated from Rubizhne and 109 from Kreminna on March 24, he said.