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Armed conflicts force over 100,000 Ukrainians to leave for Belarus

Xinhua, June 19, 2015 Adjust font size:

Over 100,000 Ukrainian citizens have escaped to Belarus for temporary stay since the beginning of the armed conflict in Ukraine.

The Ukrainians who had come to Belarus in the past two years exceeded 1 percent of the population of the host republic, Jean- Yves Bouchardy, representative of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in the Republic of Belarus, told a press conference here on Thursday.

The official said that amongst countries bordering Ukraine, Belarus ranks second, after Russia, by the number of Ukrainian citizens it has taken in.

According to Alexei Begun, the head of the Citizenship and Migration Department of the Interior Ministry of Belarus, the flow of Ukrainians to Belarus has not decreased in 2015.

"In 2014 Interior Ministry bodies processed about 800 applications of foreign citizens for refugee status, and 75 percent of those applications were filed by Ukrainian nationals. The inflow has not reduced in 2015. More than 500 applications have been processed, and most of them were lodged by residents of southeastern Ukraine," Begun added. Endite