The director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), António Vitorino, on the first day of the 2023 Diplomatic Seminar, organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, details the main “needs in terms of emergency aid” in assisting the Ukrainian population, by the UN agency he heads.
“The priority right now is obviously to support the frontline populations, that is, in the Kherson region, where they need everything: food, water, the most essential hygiene and shelter items, and warm clothing, because winter It’s particularly hard, “he. underlined.
But in relation to the Ukrainian population as a whole, the big challenge “is precisely to prepare the population to spend this winter, finding alternative methods of heating. We have a very important operation, for example, the distribution of generators that has a limited capacity “. reach, but that allow the collective heating of a group of collective facilities, where people can find shelter and heating elements”.
One of the points where the IOM has had a permanent presence is precisely in Kherson, from where the Russian forces withdrew, but which is now bombed almost daily. The former Portuguese ruler and former European commissioner admits that, with Kherson, in southern Ukraine, being one of the first lines of struggle, “living conditions there are practically impossible and one of the operations that we have been carrying out is a risk operation to organize with a voice of humanitarian support to the populations that are in that area of Kazan, in the city and its surroundings, but also to allow the evacuation of those who intend to leave for safer areas in Western Ukraine”.
“War always implies enormous suffering,” says Vitorino. A suffering aggravated by the harshness of the winter in the region, “because, in fact, the conditions of survival are questioned by the absence of means of heating. We are talking about areas where the temperature can be 10, 15 ºC below zero and, therefore, at this time the priority is to supply people with food, water, bread, for example, which is very important, and warm clothing , but many of them will have to be evacuated to more protected areas”. During the occupation by the Russian forces, there was “a set of collective services, such as health, that were severely impacted. And therefore, right now, these most vulnerable people, the elderly or people who have illnesses, have to have priority.” in an evacuation operation.
The Italian government has passed legislation that will make it more difficult for international organizations to carry out rescues at sea. Are there fears that it will spread to the rest of Europe? The IOM Director General responds without admitting this fear.
“Unfortunately, the Central Mediterranean is the deadliest migration route. We registered about 1,200 deaths during the year 2022. And obviously these are the registered deaths. We do not rule out that there are many more of which we are obviously not aware. It is one of the conclusions we drew from the International Forum on Migration, in New York, in May of last year. It was precisely the need for States to prioritize search and rescue operations to save lives. It is this conclusion that continues to be reached . be relevant. In other words, it is not a problem that can remain exclusively in the hands of civil society organizations, it is the States that have to assume this responsibility”.
This at a time when a European pact on migration and asylum is still missing, which is being negotiated in the European Union: “For us, the IOM, it is an important instrument that it be approved and we hope that the next presidencies, starting now with the Swedish one, will be able to relaunch the debate on the pact because, as the war in Ukraine demonstrates, the need for common rules on asylum and immigration is essential for the future of the European project. .”
Source: TSF
