UNHCR – UN High Commissioner for Refugees, News comment: Without international solidarity, Ukraine's
displacement crisis could turn into catastrophe, 24 March 2022
“Thousands of third country nationals fled the war alongside Ukrainian nationals, including some in need
of international protection or at risk of statelessness. Many have reached safety or returned to their home
countries, however, there are persistent reports of unequal or discriminatory treatment.”
Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2022 - Crimea*, 28 February 2022
[Crimea: Annual report on political rights and civil liberties in 2021]
“The occupation authorities have sought to compel Crimea’s residents to accept Russian citizenship and
surrender their Ukrainian passports. Those who fail to do so face the threat of dismissal from employment,
loss of property rights, inability to travel to mainland Ukraine and elsewhere, and eventual deportation as
foreigners. As many as 4,700 people have been forcibly deported since the beginning of the occupation;
half of the deportees are Ukrainian citizens, while citizens of another 37 countries and stateless persons
represent the remainder.”
Undocumented people
[Please see the section above on documentation]
Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service, File on Ukraine, June 2022 [emphasis added]
“Since the end of February, more and more refugees are coming to the Netherlands from Ukraine. Once
there they register with their local council in the Personal Records Database (in Dutch: Basisregistratie
Personen or BRP) and so become known to the IND. Most of them fall under the European Temporary
Protection Directive and are allowed to stay and work in the Netherlands until at least 4 March 2023. The
IND gives them proof of this in the form of a residence sticker placed in their passport or document.”
Human Rights Watch, Ukraine: Migrants Locked Up Near Front Lines, 6 May 2022
"In mid-April 2022, Human Rights Watch interviewed two men by telephone who are being held in the
Temporary Holding Center for Foreigners and Stateless People in Mykolaiv region, close to frontline
hostilities. On April 4, Human Rights Watch had released a report based on interviews with migrants and
asylum seekers detained in the Zhuravychi Migrant Accommodation Center in Volyn’ oblast, a former
military barracks one hour from Lutsk, a city in northwestern Ukraine. Migrants and asylum seekers also
remain in detention at the Zhuravychi center […]
Interviewees in both centers said guards told them they could leave the Zhuravychi or Mykolaiv facilities
if they joined the Ukrainian war effort, and that the guards promised them they would be granted
Ukrainian citizenship and documentation if they joined. The interviewees said that no one accepted the
offer […]
Some people from both Zhuravychi and Mykolaiv have been released and evacuated to Poland with the
aid and assistance of their embassies in neighboring countries. While the involvement of embassies of
third country nationals might be needed at some point to assist with identity and travel documents, this
should not be used as a reason to delay the urgent release of everyone currently held in both centers so
that they can move to safety."
European Network on Statelessness, Briefing: Update on access to protection for stateless refugees from
Ukraine, 28 April 2022
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