Last week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman
Alexander Lukashevich said more than 830,000 Ukrainian refugees were staying in
Russia
ROSTOV-ON-DON, September 17. ITAR-TASS/. The number of Ukrainian refugees
accommodated in Russia’s Rostov region keeps is declining as truce holds
in the embattled eastern Ukraine, a regional official told ITAR-TASS on
Wednesday.
More than 5,000 people have returned to their homeland since the ceasefire
was announced on September 5, Alexander Titov from the Rostov region
government’s information policy department said.
A total of 50,145 Ukrainian nationals currently stay in the region against
more than 55,000 refugees in the third decade of August. Most of the
refugees stay at their relatives' places, and 1,473 people live in temporary
accommodation centers.
People keep returning home despite a difficult situation in the war-torn
south-east of Ukraine. “Those whose houses were fully destroyed and relatives
killed head for other Russian regions,” Titov said. About 500 people left
the Rostov region for Ukraine over the past 24 hours.
Clashes between troops loyal to Kiev and local militias in the
self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics have killed hundreds of
civilians, brought destruction and forced hundreds of thousands to flee the
area.
On September 5, the trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine (Russia, Ukraine
and the OSCE) and representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk
People’s republics (DPR and LPR) reached an agreement in Minsk on ceasefire in
Ukraine’s embattled south-east, troops withdrawal, exchange of prisoners and
provision of humanitarian aid.
Last week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said
more than 830,000 Ukrainian refugees were staying in Russia as of Thursday.
Source: ITAR-TASS 17-09-2014
