Head of the Department for Emergency Situations (DSU) Raed Arafat told a press conference at the Victoria Palace of Government today that dedicated transit centers in the counties near the border with Ukraine can take up to 3,511 Ukrainian refugees, but this capacity can be quickly increased to 7,000.
"The refugee camp capacity is of about 7,000 people, not all camps have been set up yet, only those providing the necessary accommodation capacity are up and running, and setting up such a camp takes six, eight ours at the most. (...) The current capacity is 3,511, but it can be quickly supplemented, as I explained. 1,626 places are currently occupied, but the situation is dynamic," the top emergency management official explained.
According to Arafat, the capacity of such a center is of 201 on average, but arrangements can be made to increase it, giving the example of the Siret camp which has 400 beds.
He also referred to the high number of Indian students who passed through these transit centers and the good collaboration of the Romanian authorities with the Indian Embassy for safely evacuating them.
"We organised an airlift with India, military and civilian flights took their citizens back to India. More than 10,000 people have passed through these centers," said Raed Arafat.
According to him, 676 personnel of the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations plus the DSU personnel mobilized in Isaccea and Siret are doing the necessary civil protection work. Also, more than 380 hardware items (including minibuses and coaches) of the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations have been assigned for these activities, in addition to those provided by local authorities or other private operators.
Arafat also highlighted the involvement of international organizations - the United Nations and the Red Cross, but also of non-governmental organizations, Agerpres.ro informs.
"There's a whole section of the National Intervention Coordination and Management Center, which has so far dealt only with the Covid pandemic, tasked with managing the inflow of people from Ukraine and all their needs. Cooperation with the civil society is very important and I want to thank all those who work with us as volunteers and who put in efforts to make things better," said the DSU head.