MADRID, May 6. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has demanded this Friday “urgently” the release of dozens of migrants and asylum seekers locked up in a migrant detention center in Mikolaiv and Zhuravychi, in the Ukrainian region of Volyn.
“Migrants and asylum seekers have been locked up for almost two months on the edge of a war zone,” said HRW refugee and migrant rights researcher Nadia Hardman, adding that “detainees are terrified and in danger, and there is no justification for keeping them in detention.
The organization has warned that the people interviewed in both centers have explained that they were detained in the months prior to the Russian invasion for trying to irregularly cross the border with Poland or for visa irregularities. According to HRW, their continued detention is arbitrary and puts them at risk of harm from military hostilities.
In March, the Global Detention Project reported that a third detention center, the Chernigov Temporary Detention Center, had been emptied of immigrants and asylum seekers, as explained by HRW in its statement.
In this way, the NGO has denounced that the residents of both centers have said that, since the Russian invasion, they feel terrified to be locked up in a war zone.
“Now that Ukraine has become a war zone, the EU should do all it can to facilitate the release and safe passage of people Ukraine has detained based, in part, on EU agreements and financial support. “, Hardman stressed.
Thus, it has encouraged the European Union to welcome all migrants without distinction. “At a time when the EU is welcoming Ukrainian refugees, the EU should throw a lifeline to migrants and asylum seekers who remain in danger in Ukraine,” he concluded.
