Poland steps up plans to repatriate ethnic Poles from Mariupol
PR dla Zagranicy
Alicja Baczyńska
07.10.2015 12:26
The Polish Foreign Ministry has despatched a group of consuls to Ukraine’s besieged eastern city of Mariupol in an effort to draw up a list of potential repatriates amid the ongoing conflict in the region.
People clear a shattered window in a residential building that was damaged in a shelling on 24 January in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Ukraine. The pro-Western government in Ukraine announced 25 January that it plans to bring charges before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against the pro-Russian separatists it blames
In line with a decision taken on Tuesday, the envoys are to “write up a record of people of Polish descent and to confirm whether they want to come to Poland,” the ministry said in a communique released on Wednesday.
The action is directed towards 106 ethnic Poles and their immediate families based in Mariupol and the nearby Novoazovsky, Volodarsky and Pershotravnevy boroughs.
A repeated target of separatist offensives, the Ukrainian-controlled city of Mariupol is situated kilometers away from the self-proclaimed Donetsk republic, a stronghold of Moscow-backed rebels.
Once in Poland, the repatriates are to be taken to “adaptation camps, in line with a scheme applied earlier to people of Polish origin in Donbas,” Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna told news channel TVP Info. The repatriates are to be granted permanent stay in Poland, a status allowing them to live and work legally in the country.
The action follows in the footsteps of an evacuation of 178 ethnic Poles from the Donbas separatist enclave, carried out in January.
“We are launching what we consider an important programme, one which illustrates that our government is tending to these matters,” Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna told news channel TVP Info.
The announcement comes days after Poland’s largest opposition party, Law and Justice, accused ruling Civic Platform of inaction in dealing with Poles in Mariupol.
Last week, the government doubled budget reserves earmarked for existing and potential repatriates from PLN 14 mln (EUR 3.3 mln) to PLN 30 mln (EUR 7 mln) in 2016.
According to data from the Interior Ministry, over 5,000 ethnic Poles returned to their country of origin between January 2001 and December 2014. (aba/rk)
Source: TVP Info