On August 22, 2018 the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in ARC Borys Babin and the Chief Consultant of the Department of International Connections Taisia Tkachenko met with the Head of Odessa Office of ICRC Anastasiya Marchuk to discuss a great range of issues regarding to the humanitarian aid, provided to the IDPs, coming from the temporarily occupied Crimea, creation the necessary conditions for their social integration in the mainland of Ukraine, particularly in Kherson region.

Anastasiya Marchuk presented the implementation of the ICRC Mission in Kherson region, in particular in the adjacent to Crimea regions through a close partnership with Kherson Regional Red Cross Society of Ukraine. Such Red Cross activity is supposed to provide the IDPs with the humanitarian aid, psychological and social support, establishing of relative ties for the families who lost their relatives and conducting courses and trainings to become a volunteers.  

The prospects of establishing of billboards on ICRC activity in the check-points and the possibility to place promotional material in the office of passport service of State Enterprise “Document” as a place of intensive Crimean residents use were considered. The Permanent Representative paid attention to dynamic increase the number of the registered IDPs from Crimea and explained the main reasons of such rise. The humanitarian consequences of the number of students increase, discussed in the context of the entrance to the Higher Educational Establishments under the simplified procedure within the program “Crimea-Ukraine”.

Boris Babin drew attention to the pressed issues on equipment of the checkpoints with emergency facilities, medical supplies and establishing heating tents during a cold time of the year. Besides, the situation with the lost people, particularly in the TOT of Ukraine in Crimea and the violation of the humanitarian law by the occupying authorities have been viewed through the activity of the ICRC office in Simferopol. The ICRC mission in searching for the lost persons and conducting the trainings and seminars on searching the missing ones for the law enforcement bodies was discussed. The adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On legal status of the missing persons” dated on 12 July 2018 . № 2505-VIII was admitted positively. This law allows to speed up the searching activity and identify the lost persons. The humanitarian consequences of escalation of illegal Russia’s activity in the marine waters of the Balack and Azov Seas was discussed as well.