According to information submitted to the GDP by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Ukraine, the number of newly detained migrants in the country has decreased during the pandemic. In Zakarpattia Oblast, those who have been apprehended while entering the country during the crisis have been placed in Border Guard Temporary Holding Facilities (THFs) and Specially Equipped Premises (SPs) (Mukachevo THF, Onokivzi SP, Velukuj SP, and Solotvino SP). THFs are designed for holding non-nationals for up to 72 hours (or for up to ten days with permission from the prosecutor), while SPs are designed for holding non-nationals for three hours (or up to three days if necessary and provided the public prosecutor is notified within 24 hours). Usually, persons who need to be detained longer are transferred to one of three state-run migrant custody centres (MCCs). However, during the pandemic such transfers have been halted leaving detainees confined in THFs and SPs for far longer than legislation permits.
Although Ukrainian authorities announced a non-discriminatory approach to the pandemic, significant barriers exist in the country, preventing many undocumented nationals from accessing assistance during the pandemic. Individuals without identity documents—including thousands of stateless persons—are not entitled to access state services including medical examinations (which are free of charge to any documented individual). In a survey conducted by Right to Protection among stateless persons in Ukraine between April and May, 92 percent of stateless persons reported that they do not have a family doctor—and approximately half of all respondents reported that they had been denied registering due to their lack of identity documents. Although UNHCR estimates that there are 35,600 stateless persons in the country, in 2019 only 5,642 had a stateless person residence permit. Few are able to regularise their situation due to the fact that the country lacks a statelessness determination procedure (a draft law, #2335, which would establish this, is currently awaiting parliamentary debate).
- K. Karahiaur, “Invisible to the State During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Stateless People in Ukraine,” European Network on Statelessness, 4 June 2020, https://www.statelessness.eu/blog/invisible-state-during-covid-19-pandemic-stateless-people-ukraine?mc_cid=3ab75920f3&mc_eid=7d7f0ac3e1
- UNHCR Ukraine, Email communication with the Global Detention Project, 9 June 2020, https://www.unhcr.org/ua/en
- Global Detention Project, “Immigration Detention in Ukraine,” https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/europe/ukraine
- Border Guard Controlling Cars at the Shegyni-Medyka Checkpoint on the Border with Poland, (AFP, “Border guards chief says number of illegal migrants detained in Ukraine increasing,” Kyiv Post, 24 December 2018, https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/border-guards-chief-says-number-of-illegal-migrants-detained-in-ukraine-increasing.html)
