Ukraine not ready for commitments under readmission agreement

According to Natalia Dulnyeva from Amnesty International in Ukraine, Ukraine is not prepared for fulfilling its duties under the readmission agreement with the EU which comes into force in 2010.  The agreement means that during the first two years Ukraine will annually receive on its territory up to 2 thousand illegal migrants from the EU. Ukraine will have to send the illegal migrants home at its own expensive.

Ms Dulnyeva believes that Ukraine is unable from a technical point of view to receive such a number of people since at present only two holding places for 400 persons have been built in the Chernihiv and Volyn regions.

Ms Dulnyeva considers that such holding centres are not refuges but little better than prisons. She also asks where they will put these people later – in pre-trial detention centres [SIZO] or centres for vagrants.  She believes that Ukraine is not ready for this agreement and gave unrealistic promises of which the EU is well aware.

Ukraine is only planning to build another 7-9 holding centres. Each would be for about 100 people, however when this will take place is not at present known. The European Union allocated Ukraine 30 million Euros for construction, however according to the President of the Refugee Legal Aid Centre of “Human Rights know no borders”, Svitlana Marintsova,  there is no adequate control over the use of the funds.  She is convinced that if they begin sending illegal migrants to Ukraine when there is nowhere to accommodate them this could place the people at risk of conditions which can constitute ill-treatment.

N. Dulnyeva believes that holding centres need to be built in the Lviv, Transcarpathian, Odessa and Chernivtsi regions. The State spends on average 1 thousand Euros on each deportation, while monthly accommodation costs up to one thousand UAH.