Minister of National Defense Vasile Dincu declared on Tuesday that the Romanian authorities are prepared for a larger wave of refugees from Ukraine, and considering that this a poor population, it will remain on the Romanian territory, because many will not afford to travel to other countries.
Present on Tuesday at private broadcaster Digi 24, Dincu said that there is a very large queue of refugees waiting to enter Romania at Siret Customs, because the Ukrainian border authorities are conducting the formalities very slowly and are not well organized.
"We are in a state of vigilance. Apart from military training, defense resources, for the strengthening of the Eastern Flank, a new problem has appeared, that of the refugees, that we have to handle. This is a situation that directly affects us, it also affects the population in the area. We are now forced to make scenarios, to prepare for a large wave of refugees. The Siret Customs is the most exposed. We have organized ourselves very well, unfortunately the Ukrainian authorities are not able to process, they have removed some of the border guards from their border and they are not able to process enough. I'll give you some numbers. We could process 2,000 people an hour at Siret customs. In the early days of the conflict, we had 400-500 people per hour passing through. Now, although there is a very long queue in the Ukrainian side, today we had only 200 people per hour, which means that the Ukrainian authorities are not able to cope with the flow and are not well organized, they also have to worry about the war, we understand. We have also repeatedly called on the authorities to allow a greater flow, because we are prepared. Unfortunately, they do not manage to release the flow that we could process," said minister Dincu, Agerpres.ro informs.
He explained that in the coming days the flow of refugees from Ukraine is expected to increase, as the cities in this country are destroyed, and since this is a poor population, it will not travel to other states and will remain on Romania's territory.
"We don't have any problems yet, our offer is bigger, but the second part of the refugees will come, the second stage. In the following days, as the conflict continues, there are already six days, as the cities, the schools, the neighborhoods are being destroyed, a poor population is coming, who can no longer afford to pass through Romania, they will come and there will be many who will have to stay in Romania. This is why these days we are working to change the legislation, including the labour legislation so that we can issue work permits for Ukrainians who want to get integrated in our country. We are working with the Ministry of Education to see what we can do with the children. Of the population that has passed through our country so far, we do not know how many are left, there were 15,000 children under the age of 14, and there were 25,000 children and young people under the age of 18. It is a flow that we will have to manage," the Romanian Defense minister said.
Dincu went on to say that the Romanian authorities have inventoried 470,000 accommodation places all over the country for Ukrainian refugees.
"According to today's figures, 58-60 percent of the Ukrainian citizens who entered our territory, about 95,000 this morning, are leaving our territory. Almost 40 percent remain. We are ready and we are constantly preparing for an even higher flow of population. We have activated refugee camps in the first line, we will move to the second line, the third line and then to the whole of Romania. This is not the case now. At the moment, we have around 760 people who have requested asylum, but we have set up several refugee camps as a precaution (...) We only have 700, we will probably have 1,000 in the next few days. It's still a good situation. (...) We have inventoried 470,000 accommodation places for the future. Of course, there will be many more," added the Minister of Defense.
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