Public involvement in efforts to integrate refugees in Lithuania has grown over the last few years, experts say.
“We see the involvement of different sectors of society in this matter. This is what we are saying because integration is everybody’s business, the whole society’s business,” Renata Kuleš, the representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Lithuania, said at a discussion held on the occasion of the World Refugee Day at the Naujininkai refugee camp in Vilnius.
“What we can be delighted about and where we have been moving towards intensively in the last year is the greater involvement of both mentors and curators,” said Beatričė Bernotienė, director of the Rukla-based Refugee Reception Centre.
In her words, the Lithuanian society is becoming stronger and more responsive on this issue.
According to the Refugee Reception Centre, 350 foreigners currently live in in its facilities in Rukla, Naujininkai and Girionys, including 224 Ukrainian citizens. Women and children make up 75 percent of the total population at the Refugee Reception Centre and most of the people came from Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Tajikistan, Iraq, and Congo.
Thirty-two people have been granted refugee status, 72 are asylum seekers and four are irregular migrants, the data shows.
Another 17 are displaced persons of Lithuanian origin. These are Lithuanian citizens permanently residing in a foreign country or part of a foreign country affected by a humanitarian crisis, or persons of Lithuanian descent who have the right to restore Lithuanian citizenship.
Last year, more people than ever were forced to flee their homes, according to the UNHCR’s annual report presented on Wednesday. A record-high number of 108.4 million people fled their homes last year due to war, persecution, violence and human rights violations, the report said.
“We need different ideas, we need good plans to help those people but, on the other hand, it is also important to look at what is causing those people to flee,” Kuleš said.
“Conflicts we are not able to resolve are the biggest reason for the very large movement of people from their countries. And more than half of the world’s refugees come from three countries alone, Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine,” she noted.
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