UKRAINE: Refugees from Crimea and eastern Ukraine stage protest in Kiev to seek help

Record ID: 274590

  • Title: UKRAINE: Refugees from Crimea and eastern Ukraine stage protest in Kiev to seek help
  • Date: 5th June 2014
  • Summary: KIEV, UKRAINE (JUNE 5, 2014) (REUTERS) GROUP OF PROTESTERS AND REFUGEES FROM EASTERN REGIONS OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS WRITING POSTERS/ "CRIMEA" WRITTEN ON BACK OF CAPS PROTESTERS HOLDING LARGE UKRAINIAN FLAG OVER SQUARE IN FRONT OF PARLIAMENT (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) REFUGEE FROM KRAMATORSK, PIOTR BEREZA, SAYING: "My wife gave birth yesterday in the fifth mat
  • Embargoed: 20th June 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ukraine
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA74LBCP0GQDT43IRV2O2AH5Z8I
  • Story Text: Internally displaced refugees from Ukraine's east and families from Crimea, who have been forced to flee their homes, rallied outside Kiev's parliament building on Thursday (June 5).
    Around 50 demonstrators, including young several children, held up flags and posters appealing for the government's help and protection, which they say is lacking.
    Ukrainian government forces battling separatists in the country's rebellious east has forced many civilians in the region to flee, seeking safety either in parts of Ukraine or across the border into Russia.
    Refugee Piotr Bereza, from Kramatorsk, said refugees were receiving no governmental support.
    "My wife gave birth yesterday in the fifth maternity hospital on Sevastopol Square (in Kiev). We demand the state pay attention to the problems of refugees - people from Crimea and the Donetsk region. There are a lot of refugees from the east - from Luhansk and Donetsk regions. There is no assistance from the state besides help from volunteers and civil organisations," he said.
    A woman from Sevastopol, now living at a location outside Kiev, voiced fear for her children's immediate future.
    "We are living in such bad conditions that it even doesn't compare with the house I left in Sevastopol. I can't imagine how my children will develop in a village next to a small swamp (they are living outside Kiev). They have graduated from a naval college for children. My daughter was going to apply to Nakhimov College (a prestigious naval academy). Now we're living in a swamp," she said, wearing the Ukrainian flag around her shoulders.
    Young children, wearing caps emblazoned with the country's trident and the word 'Donbass', clutched posters that read: "I want to live in my own home!" and "We want to live in the city of heroes, Luhansk".
    Refugee Tatiana Chubakina, from the Crimean port city of Feodosia, said she feared becoming homeless for a second time.
    "We are living temporarily in an old people's home and we want a guarantee we won't be thrown out to live under the sky like homeless people. Do you understand me? That's what I want. That's ok for me, I'm old, but what about my grandchildren? I have three of them. It's good that they were allowed to finish first grade at school here in Kiev, they had their last day, they like everything but they are little and do not understand what is going on. Am I right? We want a calm and normal old age," she said.
    The Kiev government, trying to break rebellions by pro-Russia militias, has said over 300 rebels had been killed in recent days in the "anti-terrorist operation" centred on the eastern town of Slaviansk, a strategically located separatist stronghold.
    Rebels have refuted the government's claim and say the losses among the Ukrainian forces exceeded theirs.
    Ukrainian President-elect Petro Poroshenko ordered the resumption of operations by government forces soon after his May 25 election to quell the rebellion by militia in the Russian-speaking, where people were largely unable or unwilling to vote in the poll. Poroshenko has promised to unveil a plan for a "peaceful resolution" of the situation in the east after his inauguration on Saturday (June 7).
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