Some 4.8 Million IDPs Registered in Ukraine

There are 4.8 million officially registered internally displaced persons in Ukraine. This status was granted for the second time to 1.1 million people.

According to Ukrinform, the First Deputy Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine Daryna Marchak said this during a discussion on"Changing the demographic situation in the country: predictions and challenges for the country".

"We see a very large-scale internal migration. We have registered 4.8 million internally displaced persons, while not all IDPs are registered, and this is a separate problem. At the same time, out of these 4.8 million, a huge number - 1.1 million people - are moving for the second time. That is, since 2014, they first left the temporarily occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and after Feb. 24, they were forced to move again," said Marchak.

This number of displaced persons puts significant pressure on the social protection system in all host communities. People, Marchak added, need not only houses but also need places in kindergartens and schools and healthcare services.

"But the biggest problem is that we cannot predict the amount of infrastructure and how much capacity we will need in the long term. After all, we do not know how many of these citizens are planning to return home and how many will stay, where they are now, forever," the Deputy Minister emphasized.