The International Organization for Migration (IOM) with the support of the EU and Germany will provide assistance to another 20,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Donbas and Crimea.
“This humanitarian intervention is supported by the European Union allocating 6.5 million euro and 680,000 euro contribution from Germany,” the IOM mission in Ukraine said in a press release.
The IOM will provide direct cash payments to over 5,300 most vulnerable families and disabled individuals in Kharkiv region. This region was chosen as it borders on Donbas and hosts about one-fourth of the total Ukrainian IDP population.
The intervention is funded by EU’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), the mission said.
“Cash assistance proved to be the most effective practice in such circumstances to meet vulnerable families in most dignified way and offers them an opportunity to cover their needs such as rent payment, warm clothes, medicines and other vital items,” ECHO Head of Office in Ukraine, Mamar Merzouk, said.
The IOM will also open an office in Kharkiv for assessing the needs of refugees and providing immediate humanitarian assistance, as well as developing long-term solutions for the social and economic integration of IDPs.
Additional warm clothes, winter shoes, blankets, heaters, bed linen and other household items will be provided to another 1,400 IDP families under a new German-funded contribution to IOM’s humanitarian assistance program. The German contribution will also cover improvement of living conditions in collective centers, the press release reads.
According to the estimates, collective centers house about 10 percent of the total IDP population in Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the crisis, almost 8,000 IDPs have been assisted by the IOM and received warm clothes, shoes, blankets, household and hygiene items, as well as medicine, psychological and other forms of assistance with funding provided by the U.S., the UN, Norway and Switzerland.
